Time (trademarked in capitals as
TIME) is an American
newsmagazine. 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. As of
2009,
Time no longer publishes a Canadian advertiser
edition. 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
T-I-M-E stand for
The International Magazine of
Events.
As of mid-2006,
Richard Stengel is
the managing editor.
History
Time magazine 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 Henry P. Davison, partner of
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 had 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. J.P. Morgan retained a certain
control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over
Time and
Fortune. Other shareholders were Brown
Brothers
W. A. Harriman
& Co., and The New York Trust Company (
Standard Oil).
By the time of Henry Luce's death in 1967, the Time Inc. stock
which Luce owned was worth about
US$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
utilizing U.S.
radio and
movie theaters 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,
The March
of Time, to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on March 6, 1931.
Each week, the programme presented a dramatisation of the week's
news for its listeners, thus
Time magazine itself 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, leading 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 was not
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.
Jason McManus succeeded
Henry Grunwald in 1988 as Editor-in-Chief and
oversaw the transition before
Norman
Pearlstine succeeded him in 1995.
2000s
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
is delivered to subscribers on Saturday. The magazine actually
began in 1923 with Friday publication.
During early 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.
In 2009,
Time announced that they were introducing a
personalised print magazine,
Mine, mixing content from a
range of Time Warner publications based on the reader's
preferences. The new magazine met with a poor reception, with
criticism that its focus was too broad to be truly personal.
Circulation
In 2007,
Time's paid circulation dropped to 3.4
million.
Time Magazine Paid Circulation by Year
| Year |
1997 |
1998 |
1999 |
2000 |
2001 |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
| Circulation (millions) |
4.2 |
4.1 |
4.1 |
4.1 |
4.1 |
4.1 |
4.1 |
4.0 |
4.0 |
4.1 |
3.4 |
3.4 |
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 digital format.
At the end of 2008, Time discontinued publication of its Canadian
edition, which had been in existence for over 60 years.
Style
The distinctive
Time writing style was parodied 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,
"beady-eyed tycoons" and "great and good friends", however, have
long since vanished.
Up until the mid-1970s or so,
Time had a weekly section
called "Listings", which contained capsule summaries and/or reviews
of then-current significant films, plays, musicals, television
programs, and literary bestsellers, much like
The New
Yorker's section "Current Events".
Time is also known for its signature red border,
introduced in 1927 and changed only three times since then. The
issue released shortly after the
September 11 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 regularly scheduled issue contained the red border.
The next time that Time would release a special edition magazine
was in June 2009 following the death of
Michael Jackson. Additionally, the April 28,
2008 issue of
Time featured a change from the signature
red border: The 2008
Earth Day issue,
dedicated to
environmental
issues, contained a green border.
In 2007,
Time engineered a style overhaul of the magazine.
Among other changes, the magazine reduced the red cover border in
order to promote featured stories, enlarged column titles, reduced
the number 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, the Supreme Court
of Indonesia
awarded former Indonesian President Suharto damages against
Time Asia magazine, ordering it to
pay him one trillion rupiah 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 over a 1999 article which published that he
transferred stolen money abroad.
Person of the Year
Time s most famous feature throughout its history 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 is not necessarily individuals or
even human beings – for instance, on January 3, 1983 the
personal computer was recognized as
"Machine of the Year" (Time.com). In 1989 "Endangered Earth" was
named as "Planet Of The Year." In 1999,
Albert Einstein was chosen by
Time
as Person of the Century.
Controversy has occasionally arisen because of the designation of
alleged 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 is 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.
Corazon Aquino
who restored democracy in the Philippines
and impressed the U.S. Congress with her
speeches is one of four women to grace Time as Woman of the
Year.
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. Others stated, again, that it
was due to perceptions of misguided patriotism for many assumed the
just bearer of the title to be the President of Venezuela
Hugo Chávez. Editor Stengel reflected that,
if it had been a mistake, "we're only going to make it once."
In 2008, the person of the year was
Barack
Obama, with
Sarah Palin as a runner
up. Obama is the twelfth U.S. President (or
President-elect) so honored, following a
line of every president since
Franklin Roosevelt, with the sole
exception of
Gerald Ford.
Time 100
In recent years,
Time has assembled an annual list of the
100 most influential people of the year. Originally, they had made
a list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
These issues usually have the front cover filled with pictures of
people from the list and devote a substantial amount of space
within the magazine to the 100 articles about each of the people on
the list. There have, in some cases, been over 100 people, when two
people have made the list together, sharing one spot.
Time For Kids
Written by young reporters,
Time For
Kids is a
division
magazine of
Time that is
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
- Aravind Adiga, Time
correspondent for three years, winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize for fiction
- 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.
- Nancy Gibbs, essayist and
editor-at-large; has written more than 100 Time cover
stories
- Lev Grossman, brother of Bathsheba and Austin, writes primarily about books for the
magazine.
- Robert Hughes has been
Time's art critic since 1970.
- 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.
- Charles Krauthammer is a
commentator for the Washington Post. He also contributes
essays to Time.
- Nathaniel Lande, author,
filmmaker, and former creative director of Time.
- Will Lang Jr. 1936–1968,
Time Life International}
- Michael Schuman is an American
author and journalist who specializes in Asian economics, politics
and history. He is currently the Asia business correspondent for
TIME Magazine based in Hong Kong.
- 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.
See also
References
- Time Canada
- "Henry R. Luce", in Current Biography 1941, p530
- Instant History: Review of First Issue with
Cover
- Averages calculated by the Magaize Publishers of
America from Audit Bureau of Circulations statements for the first
and second six months of each year
- http://www.time.com/time/archive
- April 28, 2008 Green border issue
- MSNBC-TV report by Andrea Mitchell, April 17, 2008, 1:45PM
.
- News.com.au, Suharto wins $128m in damages
Further reading
Lundberg, Ferdinand.
America's Sixty Families. New York:
Vanuguard Press, 1937.
Swanberg, W. A.
Luce and his Empire. New York: Scribner,
1972
- The Man Time Forgot: A Tale of Genius, Betrayal, and the
Creation of Time Magazine, Isaiah Wilner, HarperCollins, New
York, 2006
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