Item — HN Reader

I remember liking Time magazine a number of years ago.

Then either they changed or I did, I'm not certain which. Sometime along 2000 or so it seems their point of view took a pointed political turn. (I feel the same towards ESPN, CNN, etc.)

When that happened, it ceased to become news to me. It was more 'entertainment', and I admit they still had some interesting ideas. But I didn't really trust Time anymore. At that point, they had reached the point of no return, it was no longer 'must read' literature. I could easily skip it, and I often did.

I wonder if many others feel the same way.

5 comments

I have to echo this sentiment. I described it to a friend as me losing confidence in using Time as a reference in a semi-formal graduate paper. It sort of became an entertainment classification in my mind after that too.

That was exactly the period when blogging came into its own and current events were happening at such a pace (9/11! anthrax in the mail! aluminum tubes!) that news-lite magazines like Time pretty much had to get out of the game.

Time Magazine in the days of Henry Luce was already politicized, for instance, being a strong supporter of Chiang Kai-Shek. I'm not sure what political turn you have in mind, though.

Is it that wild or political to support a leader trying to protect China from communist rule and the cultural destruction caused by Mao Zedong? It doesn’t seem political so much as just supporting basic human rights.

"Supporting basic human rights" is nearly always politicized. Consider how little we hear about human rights in Saudi Arabia, undoubtedly a repressive regime, versus other countries with which the United States has unfriendly relations.

Furthermore, the idea that Chiang Kai-shek was a supporter of human rights really doesn't line up well with reality.

Chiang Kai-Shek is not exactly known for his respect of human rights; he became a dictator notable for his brutal suppression of dissent and political opposition.

The White Terror of Taiwan[0] article on wikipedia goes into greater detail for the curious.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)

He presided over an authoritarian regime not above political violence before exile to Taiwan as well.

It does not get more political than human rights and supporting basic human rights is a genuinely political position. Not sure what concept of politics would be needed to manage to exclude such hot-topics from its plate.

I have a collection of war-time and after '45-'53 Time magazines. The sheer palpable weight of the government minders on the writers is clearly evident. The magazine has always been 'political'.

I subscribed to Time around then and tend to agree... it shifted from news to entertainment in my mind. I remember being puzzled why they gave ink to Joel Stein (?) writing an odd mix of comedy/irony as a news magazine feature. It seemed like an odd desperate grasp for new young readership but it alienated their base, even the younger ones of us. It wasn't what I signed up for and I let my subscription lapse.

Get some old magazine to compare with new ones.

I know that for all the ones I used to like I changed into liking their older releases more. But they changed so much that I can't stand any of them today.