Three pieces from The Nation's archives offering brisk and incisive critiques of the magazines Time, Fortune and Life.
The NationIn the spring of 1937 Dwight Macdonald wrote three articles in The Nation profiling the Time, Inc. magazines—Time, Fortune and Life—and their founder, poor-boy-made-good Henry Luce. Macdonald had worked previously for both Time and Fortune, but quit in 1936, exasperated by "the fawning editorial scalpel of Luce’s rewrite men." Macdonald’s critique of the magazines is brisk and incisive, and serves as a reminder that mainstream journalism’s ties to Wall Street and big business predate our time and will, left unchecked, outlast us as well.
‘Time’ and Henry Luce, May 1, 1937 ‘Fortune’ Magazine, May 8, 1937 Time, Fortune, Life, May 22, 1937
You can also read Mac the Knife, Jennifer Szalai’s review of Macdonald’s Masscult and Midcult, in this week’s Fall Books issue of The Nation.
The NationTwitterFounded by abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of political and cultural life, from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of Twitter, serving as a critical, independent, and progressive voice in American journalism.