Everything about Time Magazine totally explained
Time (trademarked in capitals as
TIME) is a weekly
American newsmagazine, similar to
Newsweek and
U.S. News & World Report. A European edition (
Time Europe, formerly known as
Time Atlantic) is published from
London.
Time Europe covers the
Middle East,
Africa and, since 2003,
Latin America. An Asian edition (
Time Asia) is based in
Hong Kong. Time publishes simultaneously in
Canada, with separate advertising. The
South Pacific edition, covering
Australia,
New Zealand and the
Pacific Islands, is based in
Sydney. In some advertising campaigns, the magazine has suggested that through a
backronym the letters Time stand for "The International Magazine of Events".
Richard Stengel is the current managing editor of
Time;
Priscilla Painton,
Adi Ignatius and
Michael Elliott are the current deputy managing editors.
History
Time was created in 1923 by
Briton Hadden and
Henry Luce, making it the first weekly news magazine in the
United States. The two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor of the
Yale Daily News and considered calling the magazine
Facts. Hadden was a rather carefree figure, who liked to tease Luce and saw
Time as something important but also fun. That accounts for its tone, which many people still criticize as too light for serious news and more suited to its heavy coverage of celebrities (including politicians), the entertainment industry, and pop culture. It set out to tell the news through people, and for many decades the magazine's cover was of a single person. The first issue of
Time was published on
March 3 1923, featuring on its cover
Joseph G. Cannon, the retired
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives; a facsimile reprint of Issue No. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the February 28, 1938 issue as a commemoration of the magazine's 15th anniversary.
On Hadden's death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at
Time and a major figure in the history of 20th century media.
According to "Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1972-2004" by Robert Elson, "Roy Edward Larsen […] was to play a role second only to Luce's in the development of Time Inc." In his book,
The March of Time, 1935-1951, Raymond Fielding also noted that Larsen was "originally circulation manager and then general manager of
Time, later publisher of
Life, for many years president of Time, Inc., and in the long history of the corporation the most influential and important figure after Luce."
Around the time they were raising
US$100,000 from rich
Yale alumni like
J.P. Morgan & Co., publicity man Martin Egan and J.P. Morgan & Co. banker Dwight Morrow, Henry Luce and Briton Hadden hired Larsen in 1922 – although Larsen was a
Harvard graduate and Luce and Hadden were Yale graduates. After Hadden died in 1929, Larsen purchased 550 shares of Time Inc., using money he obtained from selling RKO stock which he'd inherited from his father, who was the head of the
B.F. Keith theatre chain in
New England. However, after Briton Hadden's death, the largest Time Inc. stockholder was
Henry Luce, who ruled the media conglomerate in an autocratic fashion, "at his right hand was Larsen," Time Inc.'s second-largest stockholder, according to "Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923-1941". In 1929,
Roy Larsen was also named a Time Inc. director and a Time Inc. vice-president.
At the time of Henry Luce's death in 1967, the Time Inc. stock which Luce owned was worth about
USD$109 million and yielded him a yearly dividend income of more than US$2.4 million, according to "The World of Time Inc: The Intimate History Of A Changing Enterprise 1960-1989" by Curtis Prendergast. The value of the Larsen family's Time Inc. stock was now worth about $80 million during the 1960s and
Roy Larsen was both a Time Inc. director and the chairman of its Executive Committee, before serving as Time Inc.'s vice-chairman of the board until the middle of 1979. According to the
September 10,
1979 issue of
The New York Times, "Mr. Larsen was the only employee in the company's history given an exemption from its policy of mandatory retirement at age 65."
After "Time" magazine began publishing its weekly issues in March 1923, Roy Larsen was able to increase its circulation by utilising U.S.
radio and
movie theatres around the world. It often promoted both "Time" magazine and U.S. political and corporate interests. According to
The March of Time, as early as 1924, Larsen had brought
Time into the infant radio business with the broadcast of a 15-minute sustaining quiz show entitled 'Pop Question' which survived until 1925." Then, according to the same book, "In 1928 […] Larsen undertook the weekly broadcast of a 10-minute programme series of brief news summaries, drawn from current issues of 'Time' magazine […] which was originally broadcast over 33 stations throughout the
United States."
Larsen next arranged for a 30-minute radio programme, titled "The March of Time", to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on
March 6,
1931. Each week, his "The March of Time" radio programme presented a dramatisation of the week's news for its listeners. As a result of this radio programme, "Time" magazine was brought "to the attention of millions previously unaware of its existence," according to "Time Inc.: The Intimate History Of A Publishing Enterprise 1923-1941", and this led to an increased circulation of the magazine during the 1930s. Between 1931 and 1937, Larsen's "The March of Time" radio programme was broadcast over CBS radio and between 1937 and 1945 it was broadcast over NBC radio – except for the 1939 to 1941 period when it wasn't aired.
People Magazine was based on
Time's People page.
Time became part of
Time Warner in 1989 when Warner Communications and Time, Inc. merged. Since 2000, the magazine has been part of AOL Time Warner, which subsequently reverted to the name Time Warner in 2003.
In 2007,
Time moved from a Monday subscription/newsstand delivery to a schedule where the magazine goes on sale Fridays, and Saturday subscription delivery. The magazine actually began in 1923 with Friday publication.
In the beginning of 2007, the year's first issue was delayed for approximately a week due to "editorial changes". The changes included the job losses of 49 employees.
Circulation
In 2007,
Time's paid circulation dropped to 3.4 million.
Time Magazine Paid Circulation by Year
| Year |
Circulation (millions) |
| 2007 | 3.4
|
| 2006 | 4.1
|
| 2005 | 4.0
|
| 2004 | 4.0
|
| 2003 | 4.1
|
| 2002 | 4.1
|
| 2001 | 4.1
|
| 2000 | 4.1
|
| 1999 | 4.1
|
| 1998 | 4.1
|
| 1997 | 4.2
|
The magazine has an online archive with the unformatted text for every article published. The articles are indexed and were converted from scanned images using
optical character recognition technology. There are still minor errors in the text that are remnants of the conversion into text.
Style
Time has always had its own writing style, parodied most famously in 1936 by
Wolcott Gibbs in an article in
The New Yorker: "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind […] Where it all will end, knows God!" The early days of incessantly inverted sentences and "beady-eyed tycoons" and "great and good friends", however, have long since vanished. Their film, theatre, and television reviews, especially during the 1950s, '60's, and '70's, were often savagely sarcastic.
Up until the mid-1970s or so,
Time had a weekly section called "Listings", which contained capsule summaries of that week's significant films, plays, musicals, television programs, and literary bestsellers.
The magazine still follows French spellings for some words, such as
élite (with an accent).
Time is also known for its signature red border, introduced in 1927, which only changed twice since then. The issue released shortly after the
September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States featured a black border to symbolize
mourning. However, this edition was a special "extra" edition published quickly for the breaking news of the event; the next "regular" issue featured the red border. For the second time in its history, the April 28, 2008 issue of
Time features a change from the signature red border: the 2008 Earth Day issue features a green border, as it's dedicated to environmental issues, global warming, and climate change. Another cover that was affected by politics was a December 1941 issue of
Time which was intended to have Disney's recent film
Dumbo on the cover, but it was dropped due to the
attack on Pearl Harbor.
In 2007,
Time engineered a style overhaul of the magazine aimed at appealing to a younger generation. Among other changes, the magazine reduced the red cover border in order to advertise featured stories, enlarged column titles, reduced the amount of featured stories, increased white space around articles, and accompanied opinion pieces with photographs of the writers. The changes have met both criticism and praise.
Legal Controversy
On
September 10,
2007,
Supreme Court of
Indonesia awarded former Indonesian President
Suharto damages against Time Asia
magazine, ordering it to pay him one trillion
rupiah ($128.59 million) for
libel. The High Court reversed the
judgment of the
Appeal Court and
Central Jakarta District Court (made in 2000 and 2001). Suharto claimed more than
US$27 billion ($32bn) in the
suit against US-based Time Magazine over a 1999 article which published that he transferred stolen money abroad.
Person of the Year
Time Magazine's most famous feature over its 83 years has been the annual "Person of the Year" (formerly "Man of the Year") cover story, in which
Time recognizes the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news. Despite the title, the recipient isn't necessarily an individual — for instance, on January 3, 1983 the
personal computer was recognized as "Machine of the Year" (Time.com). In 1999,
Albert Einstein was chosen by
Time as Person of the Century.
Controversy has occasionally arisen because of the designation of dictators and warmongers as "Persons of the Year". The distinction is supposed to go to the person who, for good or ill, has most affected the course of the year; it's therefore not necessarily an honor or a reward. In the past, such figures as
Adolf Hitler and
Joseph Stalin have been Man of the Year. In 2001, Time was accused of giving way to political correctness when it named
Rudy Giuliani Person of the Year instead of
Osama Bin Laden.
In 2006 the Person of the Year was designated as "You", a move that was met with split reviews. Some thought the concept was creative; others wanted an actual person of the year. Editor Stengel reflected that, if it had been a mistake, "we're only going to make it once."
Time For Kids
Written by young reporters,
Time For Kids is a
division magazine of
Time Magazine that's especially published for
children and is mainly distributed in classrooms.
TFK contains some
national news, a "
Cartoon of the Week", and a variety of articles concerning
popular culture. An annual issue concerning the
environment is distributed near the end of the U.S. school term. The publication hardly ever reaches above fifteen pages front and back. It is used in many libraries.
Notable contributors
- James Agee
- Margaret Carlson was the first female columnist for Time.
- Whittaker Chambers was editor of Time for a while.
- Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel are film critics for the magazine. Schickel has been with the magazine since 1972 while Corliss has been with it since 1980.
- Ana Marie Cox writes the Ana Log (a compilation of political tidbits) for the magazine. She is also an acclaimed blogger and author.
- Lev Grossman, brother of Bathsheba and Austin, writes primarily about books for the magazine.
- Michael Kinsley is a well traveled American journalist and is an essayist for the magazine.
- Joe Klein is an author (Primary Colors) and a columnist for the magazine who writes the "In the Arena" column for the magazine.
- Nathaniel Lande, author, filmmaker, and former creative director of Time.
- Will Lang Jr. 1936-1968, Time Life International
- Charles Krauthammer is a commentator for the Washington Post. He also contributes essays to Time.
- Robert D. Simon 1950-1987, Time Life International
- Joel Stein is a sometimes controversial writer for the magazine who wrote the Joel 100 just after Time Magazine's Most Influential issue in 2006.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Time Magazine'.
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