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Trapped in a submarine -- that's about as scary as it gets. As the Russian sub Kursk's emergency unfolded last week, the world waited, hoping for survivors. Watching the images, my friend Katherine said, "I have to change the channel. I can't stand this." It was all but unbearable.

So when my Aug. 28 Newsweek arrived and I saw the four "Survivors" from CBS's number one TV show, I was reminded of what an absurd world we live in. I had fully expected to see the sub story on the cover of the magazine. After all, The Roanoke Times, which I've criticized in the past for its tendency to put features on Page One, recognized the dimensions of the Russian disaster with front-page stories eight days in a row.

The first-day story on Tuesday, Aug. 15, "100 Russians trapped in sub," even eclipsed President Bill Clinton's address at the Democratic National Convention the night before. For several days, headlines focused on recovery attempts. But starting Friday, Aug. 18, the news only got bleaker: "Russians again fail to lock onto damaged sub," "Hope for survivors on sub fades" (Saturday) "Hope lost for sub in Russia" (Sunday), "Divers find no sign of life" (Monday), and, finally, "Divers find no survivors on sub" (Tuesday).

Most of these stories were placed prominently in the front-page design. Three stories, "100 Russians trapped . . .", "Hope . . . fades" and "Hope lost . . . ." ran at the top. Two others ran above the fold.

The only days I was really disappointed in The Roanoke Times' prioritizing of the sub stories were this Monday and Tuesday, as Norwegian divers explored the wreck, and stories about easing the route to Virginia Tech's home football games ran higher. All in all, though, the coverage was surprisingly satisfying for a newspaper which sometimes has difficulty knowing what goes on Page One.

I cannot say the same for this week's major news magazines. Newsweek's editors apparently think we're all more interested in the survivor who won a million dollars than whether anyone survives the Kursk tragedy. Time's cover story was not only inane but not even newsworthy: "Why Marry When You Can Stay Single?" A lifestyle story is more significant than a story about lives saved or lost? U.S. News & World Report ran "The Dark Side of the Internet," about the risks of socializing or doing business on line.

A standard news magazine defense against accusations of insufficient coverage or low prominence is "we didn't have time to put a cover story together." The big three news magazines are "put to bed" (i.e., go to press) sometime Saturday before each Monday publication date. They change their cover plans only for a huge happening; the death of Princess Diana is a recent example. But the Kursk incident went global on Saturday, Aug. 12, when at least two sounds thought to be exploding torpedoes were heard on the sonar devices of other vessels in the Barents Sea. So it seems there was nearly a week to get a package of stories together for the Aug. 28 issues. In fact, all three magazines did give the story prominent coverage, and Newsweek's and Time's were certainly extensive enough for cover status.

It's not like Newsweek didn't have enough material for a cover package, running eight pages in the middle of the magazine (31-44). The bluish-gray, atmospheric two-page illustration at the beginning reminded me of the graphics associated with "The Perfect Storm." I'd like to have seen it on the cover. A sidebar by author Tom Clancy on what might have gone wrong on the Kursk concluded the package. If Clancy's piece is speculation journalism, it's at least clearly marked as such, and Clancy's theories could comfort families of the lost men.

Time's package was shorter, at six pages, and quite similar, with a spooky simulation of the sea bottom. Its coverage was exclusive among the Big Three in its echoes of Cold War hostilities. Time included a sidebar titled "Could It Happen to a U.S. Sub?" and a comparison chart, "How Russian and U.S. naval forces stack up." I found the tint of rivalry insensitive.

U.S. News & World Report also put the Kursk stories in its center and ran four pages. All three magazines used a combination of photographs and computer-generated diagrams.

A story that might take a magazine cover can also be pre-empted by more pressing news. If the Norwegian divers who aided in the rescue/recovery attempt had reached the submarine and found no signs of life during the Democratic convention, for example, the convention or its candidates might still have been on the magazines' covers. Al Gore's and Joe Lieberman's nominations may not be bigger news than 118 drowned sailors, but many editors would say the nomination has more impact and more relevance for Americans. (We should note that the Gore/Lieberman acceptance wasn't really news at all, as it came as no surprise. Now if one or the other had declined the nomination, that would have turned some heads.)

It's hard to argue that the stories which occupied this week's major news magazine covers were more timely than what happened on the Kursk. Newsweek's cover, the "Survivor" story, did at least have time value, as the final two-hour episode aired Wednesday night.

The Time and U.S. News stories -- about marriage v. the single life and Internet dangers -- can make no claim to immediacy. Both could easily have run this coming week or almost any week. I can't figure out what Newsweek's editors were thinking when they put the last of Darwin's dregs on their cover. As far as the logic of the other two magazines' editors, as a former colleague says, "It's a mystery."

All in all, it looks as though our major news magazines blew it this time around. Given the fact that the Kursk drama continued through the week, we might be able to give them one more chance. When the Sept. 4 issues appear this week, we'll hold the tribal council.

Part of my disappointment that Kursk didn't make the big covers stems from the fact that, in one respect, I think this incident is THE major news story of the year. Maybe it's just that I was a child of the Cold War, but I have been moved by the extent of Americans' grief for the submariners. Russian professor Sasha Saari, my colleague, says her 81-year-old mother has prayed every night for the sailors' rescue. Numerous people, knowing what Sasha does for a living, have expressed to her their sorrow about the sailors' fate and their dismay over the Russian government's mishandling of rescue attempts.

It is a story which should soften the hardest heart -- 118 Russians, many of them young, trapped in a submarine named for the town where Russian soldiers held off the Nazis in the last major battle on the Eastern front. The vessel's Aug. 12 mission was such a source of pride that five top officers in the Northern Fleet had come aboard to watch. Now, the name Kursk, once associated with Russian valor and self-sufficiency, merely conjures images of a military which could not save itself.

I've been thinking a lot about Mark Twain's "The War Prayer" these last few days. In the essay, a small town holds a church service which is really a pep rally to send its sons off to the Civil War. The congregation prays for total annihilation of the enemy -- until a mysterious stranger enters the church to point out that such a prayer has two sides. In praying for the victory of their sons, the congregation also asks God for the defeat of other sons:

"O Lord, our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain ..."

Twain's congregation, after the stranger's remarks, believes him to be "a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said." The reactions to the Kursk incident that I have heard and heard about lead me to think that some of us do see the sense in what the stranger said. These sailors may have worked on a submarine designed to sink American aircraft carriers, but all the same, we are saddened at their apparent loss. We appear -- some of us, at least -- to have transcended the "us and them" mentality for once, even where a formerly Communist country is concerned.

I am not Pollyana. I know that our government is still paying to dismantle other countries' nuclear weapons only if they were formerly aimed at us. I know that, despite the horrible fate of the Kursk's crew, foreign military units deployed in the area (including the Americans) may be more interested in the military secrets they could discover inside the hull than in the bodies of the men who died there.

But I also know that many of us are moved by the Russian sailors' fate and their families' suffering. This is especially true as we learn that the sailors took jobs on ill-serviced submarines where a slip with the worn equipment could mean unleashing a torpedo. I read in U.S. News that, for this substantial risk, Kursk officers were paid about $180 per month, and enlistees made around $72. This, Sasha Saari assures me, is good pay in Russia, and Newsweek says the submariners were considered elite compared to other Russian soldiers -- those fighting on the ground in Chechnya, for example. The New York Times reported Wednesday that President Vladimir Putin's government would pay the survivors of each Kursk victim an officer's salary for ten years in compensation. At $182 a week, that's $9,460 a year.

And this brings me back to the American who won a million dollars for "surviving" 39 days on an island. Is Time's Person of the Year for 2000 likely to be the big winner on "Survivor"? Remember that the designation is based more on the person's impact or prominence than accomplishment. Hitler, after all, was a Man of the Year. Right now, though, my money is on Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose sins of omission may well have renewed the spirit of peace.

Note: I want to thank my Ferrum colleagues Sasha Saari, associate professor of Russian, George Loveland, public services librarian; and Dr. Samuel Payne, professor of history, for assisting me with research.