The New York Times Magazine

The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazine is also noted for its photography, especially relating to fashion and style.

The New York Times Magazine
The magazine's June 8, 2008, cover
EditorJake Silverstein[1]
CategoriesNewspaper supplement
FrequencyWeekly
Circulation1,623,697 per week[2] (as part of Sunday paper)
PublisherArthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.
First issueSeptember 6, 1896 (1896-09-06)
CompanyThe New York Times
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Websitewww.nytimes.com/magazine
ISSN0028-7822

The magazine also includes various puzzles, which have been popular features since their introduction.

History

Its first issue was published on September 6, 1896, and contained the first photographs ever printed in the newspaper.[3] In the early decades, it was a section of the broadsheet paper and not an insert as it is today. The creation of a "serious" Sunday magazine was part of a massive overhaul of the newspaper instigated that year by its new owner, Adolph Ochs, who also banned fiction, comic strips and gossip columns from the paper, and is generally credited with saving The New York Times from financial ruin.[4] In 1897, the magazine published a 16-page spread of photographs documenting Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, a "costly feat" that resulted in a wildly popular issue and helped boost the magazine to success.[5]

In its early years, The New York Times Magazine began a tradition of publishing the writing of well-known contributors, from W. E. B. Du Bois and Albert Einstein to numerous sitting and future U.S. Presidents.[5] Editor Lester Markel, an "intense and autocratic" journalist who oversaw the Sunday Times from the 1920s through the 1950s, encouraged the idea of the magazine as a forum for ideas.[5] During his tenure, writers such as Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Gertrude Stein, and Tennessee Williams contributed pieces to the magazine. When, in 1970, The New York Times introduced its first Op-Ed page, the magazine shifted away from publishing as many editorial pieces.[5]

In 1979, the magazine began publishing Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist William Safire's "On Language", a column discussing issues of English grammar, use and etymology. Safire's column steadily gained popularity and by 1990 was generating "more mail than anything else" in the magazine.[6] The year 1999 saw the debut of "The Ethicist", an advice column written by humorist Randy Cohen that quickly became a highly contentious part of the magazine. In 2011, Ariel Kaminer replaced Cohen as the author of the column, and in 2012 Chuck Klosterman replaced Kaminer. Klosterman left in early 2015 to be replaced by a trio of authors—Kenji Yoshino, Amy Bloom, and Jack Shafer—who used a conversational format; Shafer was replaced three months later by Kwame Anthony Appiah, who assumed sole authorship of the column in September 2015. "Consumed", Rob Walker's regular column on consumer culture, debuted in 2004. The Sunday Magazine also features a puzzle page, edited by Will Shortz, that features a crossword puzzle with a larger grid than those featured in the Times during the week, along with other types of puzzles on a rotating basis (including diagramless crossword puzzles and anacrostics).

In September 2010, as part of a greater effort to reinvigorate the magazine, Times editor Bill Keller hired former staff member and then-editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, Hugo Lindgren, as the editor of The New York Times Magazine.[7] As part of a series of new staff hires upon assuming his new role, Lindgren first hired then–executive editor of O: The Oprah Magazine Lauren Kern to be his deputy editor[8] and then hired then-editor of TNR.com, The New Republic magazine's website, Greg Veis, to edit the "front of the book" section of the magazine.[9] In December 2010, Lindgren hired Joel Lovell, formerly story editor at GQ magazine, as deputy editor.[10]

In January 2012, humorist John Hodgman, who hosts his comedy court show podcast Judge John Hodgman, began writing a regular column "Judge John Hodgman Rules" (formerly "Ask Judge John Hodgman") for "The One-Page Magazine".[11]

Supplements

In 2004, The New York Times Magazine began publishing an entire supplement devoted to style. Titled T, the supplement is edited by Deborah Needleman and appears 14 times a year. In 2009, it launched a Qatari Edition as a standalone magazine.

In 2006, the magazine introduced two other supplements: PLAY, a sports magazine published every other month, and KEY, a real estate magazine published twice a year.[12]

Poetry

US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey selects and introduces poems weekly, including from poets Tomas Transtromer, Carlos Pintado, and Gregory Pardlo.

Puzzles

The magazine features the Sunday version of the crossword puzzle along with other puzzles. The puzzles have been very popular features since their introduction. The Sunday crossword puzzle has more clues and squares and is generally more challenging than its counterparts featured on the other days of the week. Usually, a second puzzle is included with the crossword puzzle. The variety of the second puzzle varies each week. These have included acrostic puzzles, diagramless crossword puzzles, and other puzzles varying from the traditional crossword puzzle.

The puzzles are edited by Will Shortz, the host of the on-air puzzle segment of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday (introduced as "the puzzlemaster").

The Funny Pages

In the September 18, 2005, issue of the magazine, an editors' note announced the addition of The Funny Pages, a literary section of the magazine intended to "engage our readers in some ways we haven't yet tried—and to acknowledge that it takes many different types of writing to tell the story of our time".[13] Although The Funny Pages is no longer published in the magazine, it was made up of three parts: the Strip (a multipart graphic novel that spanned weeks), the Sunday Serial (a genre fiction serial novel that also spanned weeks), and True-Life Tales (a humorous personal essay, by a different author each week). On July 8, 2007, the magazine stopped printing True-Life Tales.

The section has been criticized for being unfunny, sometimes nonsensical, and excessively highbrow; in a 2006 poll conducted by Gawker.com asking, "Do you now find—or have you ever found—The Funny Pages funny?", 92% of 1824 voters answered "No".[14]

Strips
Title Artist Start Date End Date # of Chapters
Building Stories Chris Ware September 18, 2005 April 16, 2006 30
La Maggie La Loca Jaime Hernandez April 23, 2006 September 3, 2006 20
George Sprott (1894-1975) Seth September 17, 2006 March 25, 2007 25
Watergate Sue Megan Kelso April 1, 2007 September 9, 2007 24
Mister Wonderful Daniel Clowes September 16, 2007 February 10, 2008 20
Low Moon Jason February 17, 2008 June 22, 2008 17
The Murder of the Terminal Patient Rutu Modan June 29, 2008 November 2, 2008 17
Prime Baby Gene Yang November 9, 2008 April 5, 2009 18

Sunday serials
Title Author Start Date End Date # of Chapters
Comfort to the Enemy Elmore Leonard September 18, 2005 December 18, 2005 14
At Risk Patricia Cornwell January 8, 2006 April 16, 2006 15
Limitations Scott Turow April 23, 2006 August 6, 2006 16
The Overlook Michael Connelly September 17, 2006 January 21, 2007 16
Gentlemen of the Road Michael Chabon January 28, 2007 May 6, 2007 15
Doors Open Ian Rankin May 13, 2007 August 19, 2007 15
The Dead and the Naked Cathleen Schine September 9, 2007 January 6, 2008 16
The Lemur John Banville
(as Benjamin Black)		 January 13, 2008 April 27, 2008 15
Mrs. Corbett's Request Colin Harrison May 4, 2008 August 17, 2008 15
The Girl in the Green Raincoat Laura Lippman September 7, 2008 1 (to date)

Of the serial novels, At Risk, Limitations, The Overlook, Gentlemen of the Road, and The Lemur have since been published in book form with added material.

References
  1. Texas Monthly's Jake Silverstein is named New York Times Magazine editor
  2. The New York Times Company (2006-09-30). "Investors: Circulation Data". Retrieved 2007-03-07.
  3. The New York Times Company. New York Times Timeline 1881-1910 Archived 2009-03-13 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 2009-03-13.
  4. "The Kingdom and the Cabbage", Time, 1977-08-15. Retrieved on 2007-05-07.
  5. Rosenthal, Jack (1996-04-14). "5000 Sundays: Letter From the Editor". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-05-24.
  6. "Language Maven Strikes Again", Entertainment Weekly, 1990-08-10. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
  7. Peters, Jeremy (2010-09-30). "Hugo Lindgren Named Editor of The Times Magazine". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  8. Peters, Jeremy (2010-10-11). "Times Names Deputy Magazine Editor". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  9. "TNR's Greg Veis to The New York Times Magazine". New York. 2010-10-22. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  10. Summers, Nick. "Inside the Media Hiring Bubble". The New York Observer, January 4, 2011
  11. John Hodgman (29 January 2012). "Judge John Hodgman's Vest Pocket Argument Settler". JohnHodgman.com. Retrieved 2014-05-15.
  12. The New York Times Company (2006). "Media Kit 2007: Magazine Highlights". Archived from the original on 2007-05-03. Retrieved 2007-05-24.
  13. "From the Editors; The Funny Pages", The New York Times, 2005-09-18. Retrieved on 2007-05-05.
  14. "Is the 'Times Magazine' Funny?". Gawker.com. 2006-02-13. Archived from the original on 2007-08-09. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
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