Magazines began with the approach of international conflict in Europe and the beginning of World War I, magazines started featuring articles on international issues.
Facing threats from Germany, the British conducted an open campaign to lure the United States into the looming war--going so far as to plant stories of German atrocities in magazines (that they knew that U.S. magazines had a habit of copying). Many of the stories were false, but they still had the effect of starting to inflame U.S. attitudes against Germany.
Even so, there was considerable opposition in the United States to becoming embroiled in a world war. President Woodrow Wilson, who reportedly regularly read English magazines, was convinced that the United States should enter the war.
Eventually he was able to won over a major part of the U.S. population. As the implications of the situation become more evident, people in the United States started relying more and more on newspapers and magazines for information on the worsening conditions.
>>With the heightened interest in world events, another opportunity presented itself--an entire magazine devoted to news. In 1923, Henry Luce, who had just graduated from Yale, begged and borrowed $86,000 from friends and relatives to start Time magazine. The first edition is shown here.
It was four years before Time saw a profit, but once it got rolling, it moved on to make magazine history.
Among other things, Time established a distinct style of reporting and writing. The term "timespeak" was coined to cover the magazine's "cut-to-the-chase," sometimes irreverent, but always authoritative approach.
>>A decade or so later, two other newsmagazines appeared: U.S. News (later to be known as U.S. News and World Report) and Newsweek.
By 2002, a trend was seen in newsmagazines to move away from hard news and shift their focus toward more feature (soft news) articles. By the time people get these magazines they are already familiar with news events from watching cable news channels. Although the news channels may be able to provide more up-to-the-minute information, they do not provide the depth and perspective associated with newsmagazines.
