Recently I found a Newsweek from December 4th, 1978. It focuses mainly on the Jonestown Massacre which happened a few weeks earlier. The whole thing is just so hard to imagine and Newsweek's coverage is mind blowing. The most incredible account is a side bar by Chris J. Harper detailing his trip to Jonestown:

I had flown to Guyana's capital of Georgetown, heading to Jim Jone's commune, in the same single-engine Cessna that members of Ryan's party had taken. The bullet holes in the front passenger door had not yet been repaired, and the back of one seat was still smeared with blood of one of the victims. We landed at Port Kaituma, where the second plane caught in the shoot-out, a Guyana Airways green and yellow twin-engine Otter, had not been moved; Its left tire was still flat, punctured by bullets.

The soldier was polite, helpful, eager to tell me what he knew. But he would not go near the bodies, and neither would a third soldier I tried to talk to. He concentrated on ignoring everything around him. He had wrapped a fragrant nut in a handkerchief, and stared sullenly ahead, breathing the aroma deeply as if it could eliminate the stench that pervaded the camp.

The ads in the Newsweek are mainly for insurance, alcohol, cigarettes and cars so not much has changed with the exception of cigarette ads which you don't see much of anymore. Aside from the Jonestown stuff the other thing that got my attention was a write up in the regular television section regarding 2 new game shows: The $1.98 Beauty Show and The Cheap Show. Both of these shows sound just like most of the cheap garbage that passes for television now minus maybe the phony moral code that today's shows drip with.

No Regrets: From a strictly feminist perspective, this program makes the Atlantic City spectacle seem like a National Organization for Women consciousness-raiser. Bodies of virtually every age, contour and girth are stuffed in bikinis and trotted about like exhibits at a cattle auction. Performing talents are stretched to the most grotesque lengths; an over-ripe baton twirler named Trixie scored exactly three catches in twelve attempts. All the while, emcee Rip Taylor leeringly twirls his handlebar mustache as an off camera announcer machine-guns sexist jokes. Introducing one buxom lass, he quips: "Maxine's wildest dream is to tie her shoes without falling over."