THE FUTURE OF NEWSMAGAZINES

Richard Stengel, the new managing editor of Time magazine, is not very sure about the future of his print publication.

Not the most encouraging sign for his newsroom.

If his has so many doubsta perhaps must resign as soon as possible.

-A few comments, after his words from an interview for I want Media:

ONLINE

If Time co-founders Henry Luce and Briton Hadden were creating a newsmagazine today, "it would probably be electronic only."

-Well, what is for sure is that the times.com will better than today´s one. And Mr. Stengel was in the past... his editor.

COVERS

"I think the covers I've done since I've been here have a strong point of view. You have to give people a reason to pay attention to the news. You have to present news in a way that's forceful and compelling."

-Sorry, but they are not working. Street sales are down.

What we need from a newsmagazine is not monographic issues or philosophical questions, but anticipatory and strategic journalism.

Don´t tell me what happened the last week (the original idea), but what´s next.

FRIDAYS

"Even though Monday is the first day of the week, I've always felt that we were landing at people's doorsteps and on the newsstands at the wrong time. On Friday you're setting the agenda more than merely reflecting it. This change will help us lead the conversation rather than just mirror it."

-That´s right.

BLOGS

"I'd love to get our correspondents blogging. Wouldn't it be great if our Beijing correspondent had a blog about life in Beijing?"

-This is done by many newspapers and magazines, but it seems that is great news at Time magazine.

NEWS ANALYSIS

"Our bread and butter is news analysis. We analyze what's going on, which is forward-looking rather than retrospective. Part of the difficulty of the newsmagazine business is that people still think that is what we do."

-If you read Time, you wil see that his editor thinks one thing and its newsroom must do a different one, because the most recent issues are full of soft news, entertainment (many times about related products from the Time Warner factory!) and very parochial USA narrow stories.