Deaths that won’t be widely mourned.
It is deeply satisfying to see the New York Times headline: “The Last Days of Time Inc.” One dying mainstream media organ writing the obituary of another. What could be better? It illustrates two truisms that sometimes get lost in the shuffle: things change, and the dying eventually die. For those of us who want things to change—not incrementally, bit by bit, but radically—and see sundry people, practices, and institutions depart this vale of tears sooner rather than later, the headline is pure hope.
Only 29 years ago Time Inc. was on top of the journalistic pile, flush enough to pay Warner Communications $14.9 billion for 51 percent of the company. The thing that changed was the internet, which skewered Time the New York Times, and countless other businesses, media and non-media alike.
