I don't read Time magazine anymore. It's been fifteen years since I last picked it up (at an airport), and if you go back over 25 years....I've read less than six editions. As a kid, I probably picked it up at least once or twice a month. My take is that it basically ran out of 'value' somewhere in the late 1990s, and people started to quote or talk about their articles....less and less. Part of this problem was the arrival of CNN, and part of it due to articles being written in a way to 'bait' you.
I would take a guess that you could go into a small southern town of 2,000 folks, and find fewer than twenty subscriptions today from the residents. It's virtually guaranteed that the doctor or dentist of the town will subscribe, and the local high school will be getting a copy. Beyond that, it's of limited value.
I noted some news source from today quoted up the newest Time 'article'....they'd gone and selected their one-hundred folks from around the globe who are the most influential. Curiously,Justice Kavanaugh made it on the list, and the gal who accused him of rape/sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford, also made it on the list.
You could throw the picture of Kavaugh and Ford up on the wall with 98 others, and ask folks to identify it. I doubt if you could get more than 5-percent of people who identify both of them. If you asked folks if they were 'influential'? I suspect the vast majority would start laughing and question how you'd make up such a list. In the minds of most, their local pharmacy guy, or car-mechanic guy are more influential than Ford or Kavanaugh.
Was the 'deck' stacked when this influential list was cranked out? One might suspect that. But does it even matter? Are there even any readers consumed with knowing the influential hundred, or for that matter reading Time on a regular basis? I have my doubts. Maybe it is still the number one magazine for dental waiting rooms, or tire shops....but beyond that, does anyone quote them anymore?
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