When Henry Luce and Briton Hadden founded TIME 75 years ago, they felt that folks were being bombarded with information but were nevertheless woefully underinformed. They set out to create a magazine that would sift through the clutter, synthesize what was important and preach their cheeky prejudices.
We're now faced with a world that is far more saturated with information than they could have imagined: scores of TV networks, hundreds of magazines, thousands of electronic sources--all brimming with headlines and hype, news and sleaze, smart analysis and kooky opining.
What is the role of a general-interest newsmagazine in such an environment? Obviously, it's changed a lot in 75 years. We no longer try to do a recap or digest of last week's news, since we assume our readers are familiar with most of the headlines. Instead, we try to put events into context, anticipate trends, add new insights and facts, tell the behind-the-scene tales and explore the questions others forgot to ask.
But one aspect of our original mission has been, we believe, strengthened. The proliferation of magazines, channels and services means that much of the media has become narrowly focused on special interests and niches. Yet we hold to the faith that intelligent people are curious about what's new in all sorts of fields, from politics to art, religion to technology. Just like us, they can be interested in both Saddam Hussein and Monica Lewinsky, Andrew Grove and Princess Diana, Toni Morrison and Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, Ken Starr and Matt Damon.
So each week we have the joy of bringing together a mix of stories that conveys the excitement of our times in all its diversity. This mission helps us promote the rewards of serendipity, such as when a reader who is most interested in our Nation and World sections stumbles across something intriguing in Medicine or Music. It also helps us play a role that has become increasingly valuable in a world in which so many endeavors are hyperlinked: providing the common ground of information and knowledge that all informed folks should share and in fact enjoy sharing, whatever their specialized interests may be.
We also offer, or at least try to, a philosophical common ground. Since the great left-right struggles of the 1960s through '80s, the world has entered a millennial period in which common sense plays a greater role than knee-jerk ideological faiths. Although our stories often have a strong point of view, we try to make sure they are informed by open-minded reporting rather than partisan biases.
Yes, that represents a change from the days when Luce's global agendas infused these pages. The son of a Presbyterian missionary in China, Luce inherited a zeal to spread American values and Christianize the communist world. He was very up front about his approach. In the prospectus that he wrote with Hadden, he noted that "complete neutrality...is probably as undesirable as it is impossible," and he proceeded to lay out a litany of what would be the new magazine's "prejudices."
As TIME matured, it began to place more emphasis on reporting than on these prejudices. Nevertheless, there are certain prejudices--perhaps it's best to call them values--in the original prospectus that still inform TIME's journalism.