The Last Days of Time Inc.

An oral history of how the pre-eminent media organization of the 20th century ended up on the scrap heap.

By SRIDHAR PAPPU and JAY STOWE MAY 18, 2018

Time Inc. began, in 1922, with a simple but revolutionary idea hatched by Henry R. Luce and Briton Hadden. The two men, graduates of Yale University, were rookie reporters at The Baltimore News when they drew up a prospectus for something called a “news magazine.” After raising $86,000, Mr. Hadden and Mr. Luce quit their jobs. On March 3, 1923, they published the first issue of Time: The Weekly News-Magazine.

In 1929, the year of Mr. Hadden’s sudden death, Mr. Luce started Fortune. In 1936, he bought a small-circulation humor publication, Life, and transformed it into a wide-ranging, large-format weekly. Later came Sports Illustrated, Money, People and InStyle. By 1989, with more than 100 publications in its fold, as well as significant holdings in television and radio, Time Inc. was rich enough to shell out $14.9 billion for 51 percent of Warner Communications, thus forming Time Warner.............To Read More....

 

My Take - As you read this one thing will probably strike you (at least it did me) is this writer's description  of what went on at Time, and I'm sure all the big media organizations of the day, clearly demonstrates how and why they became so arrogant.....and weird. 

 

What happened at Time is seemingly what became the culture in the world  of "news".  He bemoans the loss of the the "business model" of Time, but that business model was fed by corruption of the truth, and the lack of alternatives.  That model is now doomed.  The Internet has now made all that impossible. 

 

They are now past their time and the symptoms of old age are their lot and their future. Their hands tremble, their backs are stooped, their teeth are falling out, their eyes are dimmed and their hearing is gone but can yet be startled at a sound of a bird,  Their knees are weak and they fear the heights and have terror for what may be in the way as their balance is no longer to be found.  Their passion has waned and the days are get shorter every year.   The golden bowl is soon to be broken, and they will soon cease to exist at all.    Paraphrasing Ecclesiastes 12:1-7.