I assumed it was intentional?

Himu here's a few points I thought I'd raise as a fellow aspiring designer (which you can completely ignore, these are just what I'd do is all)
- theres a sort of feathering/outer glow thing which is very noticeable on the top of Barry's head where it overlaps the masthead. May want to fix that as it looks dodgy.
- have you used one of those pre-packaged photoshop filters on Obama? Those are no-nos if you want to be taken seriously.
- I don't understand why you've used that tacky display font for the "the" in "The Moderate"? It's quite cheap looking (for the angle of your publication, that is) and distracting. Imo the font and colour should be the same one used on "moderate".
composition wise these are very good though, and theres some cool work in these. I really like the torn paper stuff