Information about New York Times Magazine

The New York Times Magazine
The magazine's February 23, 2004 cover. The magazine's February 23, 2004 cover.
Editor	Gerald Marzorati
Categories	Newspaper supplement
Frequency	Weekly
Circulation	1,623,697 per week[1] (as part of Sunday paper)
Publisher	Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.
First issue	September 6, 1896
Company	The New York Times Company
Country	United States
Language	English
Website	www.nytimes.com/magazine
ISSN	0028-7822 |]

The New York Times Magazine is a supplement to the Sunday The New York Times newspaper. Its first issue was published on September 6, 1896, and contained the first photographs ever printed in the newspaper.^[2] The creation of a "serious" Sunday magazine was part of a massive overhaul to 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.^[3] In mid-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.^[4]

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.^[4] 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.^[4] During his tenure, writers such as Count 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.^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[6][7] The Sunday Magazine also features a puzzle page, edited by Will Shortz, that features a lengthy crossword puzzle more challenging than the crosswords featured in the Times during the week, along with other types of puzzles on a rotating basis (including diagramless crossword puzzles and anacrostics.)

Today, The New York Times Magazine is host to many longer feature articles than are typically included in the newspaper, and continues to attract notable contributors. The magazine is also renowned for its glamorous photography, especially relating to fashion and style. In 2004, The New York Times Magazine began publishing an entire supplement devoted to style. Titled "T", the supplement is edited by Stefano Tonchi and appears 14 times a year. In Fall 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.^[8]

The Funny Pages

In the September 18, 2005 issue of The New York Times 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."^[9] The Funny Pages is made up of three parts: the Strip (a multipart graphic novel that spans weeks), the Sunday Serial (a genre fiction serial novel that also spans 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 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."^[10]

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	23
Mister Wonderful	Daniel Clowes	September 16, 2007		5 (to date)

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		6 (to date)

Of the serial novels, At Risk, Limitations, and The Overlook have since been published in book form with added material. Gentlemen of the Road will follow suit on October 30, 2007.

References