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
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.
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
Times 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, Times paid circulation dropped to 3.4 million.
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 Yorkers section "Current Events".
Time
is also known for its signature red border, introduced in 1927 and changed only twice 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
Time
correspondent for three years, winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize for fictionTime
.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 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 storiesTimes 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.
- 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.
- 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
