Time Staffers Freaking Out

[applegrove]

Time Staffers Freaking Out

January 7, 2025 at 9:15 am EST By Taegan Goddard 7 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2025/01/07/time-staffers-freaking-out/

"SNIP............

Time magazine staffers “have grown increasingly unhappy” about owner Marc Benioff’s “public embrace of the incoming president,” the San Francisco Standard reports.

Said one former staffer: “When you’re inside, it’s pretty clear that … their subscription model is in complete shambles. And one thing that is very clear is that it’s no longer a journalism outlet. It’s just sort of a glorified corporate brochure.”

.............SNIP"

[sop]

1. "Sort of a glorified corporate brochure"

My parents subscribed to Time when I was a kid. It used to be a serious news magazine.

[applegrove]

2. I read it too.

[themaguffin]

3. I subscribed to Newsweek in the 2000s. It had some good writers and information. Then it changed hands a few times and..

got worse and worse...

I dropped the subscription before it got bad for no particular reason other than probably getting so much information online, but was sad to see.

[CousinIT]

7. Unfortunately, that describes about 90% (or more) of mainstream media right now. nt

[malaise]

12. THIS

Rec

[Lonestarblue]

4. Much of media today is glorified Republican propaganda.

The only people I see with negative articles on Trump are a few opinion writers. I wonder how ling they’ll last, as we just saw with Ann Telnaes of WaPo.

[Prairie Gates]

5. Time was founded by Henry Luce, who was a sort of Rupert Murdoch of his day

He bragged about getting Eisenhower elected. Time and Life were very much considered to be conservative publications for most of their history, though Luce claimed to separate editorial from news, and mostly did, at least of a sort. Of course, mid-century Republicans are unrecognizable today; Luce would probably be considered vaguely centrist and probably would be harshly derided for being a "far left loon" by the slobbering MAGA faithful.

[Hugin]

6. Luce may have used multi syllable words...

That alone would have made him suspect in the modern MAGAt manifestation of the Retrumplican cult.

[Prairie Gates]

8. Luce was very well-educated and started out as a "newsman" to some degree

His hobby horse was China because he had grown up there with his missionary parents. He's probably the only reason anyone can recognize the name Chiang Kai-Chek today, and there's a pretty good argument to be made that he contributed to the recognition of Taiwan as an "independent" state. There's also good reason to see his brand of Asian-expansionary conservatism as directly related to the Vietnam War, which both Time and Life spent a lot of time promoting until they couldn't anymore.

He would be recognizable as a vicious anti-Communist, though he found McCarthy to be a course fool.

[Grins]

19. Luce headlined "Who lost China?" during Truman admin.

And made it clear it was Truman, when in fact there was nothing to lose as the US never “had China”.

A huge political and propaganda blow that helped Ike and GOP. It resonated for years.

LBJ was so terrified of a “Who lost Vietnam?” meme aimed directly at him - it affected his policy making and millions died.

Odd that Luce never asked “Who lost Cuba”, or Spain or Iran, or….

[ananda]

9. Good grief, Time and Newsweek turned a long time ago!

Sheesh

[Farmer-Rick]

20. People don't know what being left

Or liberal really means anymore. I'll be surprised if any US media company survives the next four years. The words have been used as pejoratives for so long that many started using the word progressive instead to describe liberal opinions. But yeah, most of the US media is really far right.

The far right are a handful of filthy-rich families, and Putin, who got wealthy through corruption and "free" trade. These few people, maybe 300 in the entire world, own most everything in the US. They must own all the media or no one would ever even consider voting for such corrupt, evil people.

[ananda]

21. You got that right!

Thanks

[Kid Berwyn]

10. Luce corruption evident from November 22, 1963

Last edited Tue Jan 7, 2025, 06:39 PM - Edit history (1)

In 2023, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts held an exhibition of LIFE magazine and its role in photojournalism. The section on their coverage of JFK’s assassination was less Camelot and more Orwell. To help the public believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, Time-Life published stills from the Zapruder film in the wrong order to create the impression JFK’s body moved forward, hence he was shot from behind.

Here’s a picture:



Pictures making a bigger picture, a false story.

ETA to add this from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Media):

The Plot to Kill ‘JFK’

https://fair.org/extra/the-plot-to-kill-jfk/

I do not labor under the delusion that at Time magazine today (or CBS News, Hi, Dan R!) knows about any of that.

[AverageOldGuy]

11. So . . .

. . . are you telling us Kennedy was shot from the front and Time-Life was part of the CIA assassination and subsequent coverup?

[Kid Berwyn]

16. Yes.

Henry Luce went along with the lies spun by Allen Dulles, J Edgar Hoover and John McCloy. I don't.

Something else I'd want DUers to remember:

Two members of the Warren Commission helped bring NAZIs into US mainstream.



And that played a key role in the rise of post-war fascism. Allen Dulles, as a top official of the OSS and CIA, incorporated NAZI war criminals into the CIA from its founding. John McCloy, as High Commissioner for Germany, allowed Klaus Barbie, Alfred Krupp, eight members of his board, and who-knows-who-else to escape justice. Of course, Dulles and McCloy also were barons of Wall Street and Beltway Insiders, at the heart of the military industrial complex. We all can see what that means for the United States today.

Background:

The American who let the Nazis rebuild Germany

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/november-2021/the-american-who-let-the-nazis-rebuild-germany/

CIA and NAZI War Criminals

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm

In addition to ignoring the CIA and its Castro assassination business with the MAFIA from before JFK was in office, the NAZI connections of two prominent Warren Commission are NEVER brought up anytime the Warren Commission is mentioned on TV, in the NYT or ever by TIME-LIFE.

[quakerboy]

13. There is no room for journalism going forward

Doubt it will be allowed any more than it is in any other authoritarian nation.

[PortTack]

14. "Glorified corp brochure." Along with Newsweek, USA today, and all of the m$m.

[keep_left]

15. "...A glorified corporate brochure"...they got that right! I remember...

...when Time had this huge snarling picture of Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) on the cover, with something like 80-point type screaming "All the Rage!". This was their coverage of the (early '90s) Seattle "grunge" movement, which came about a year too late. A friend in the music biz took that as his personal omen to head out to the Northwest to be the next Eddie Vedder. I explained to him that Time magazine--even back then--was basically a consent-manufacturing factory for middle managers who were too dumb or scared to think for themselves, and needed to be told how to think the "right thoughts". Furthermore, one seeing Vedder on the cover of Time made it quite certain that the movement was overwith and the world was marching on.

I have to say that afterward, something changed permanently about that friendship, but I still think my view of things stands up fairly well today.

[Initech]

17. Nothing is safe from these fucking assholes!

[bif]

18. Thank god for The New Yorker!

I've been getting it since I was in high school. (Back in the 70s).