Another Well-Known Publication That's Changed Its Approach

A while back, I wrote here that National Geographic had changed its approach and has focused on bigger picture issues, especially on climate change. That puts it in the realm of a 'liberal' publication, because of course, conservatives don't think it's all that crucial, for some ungodly reason.

I think I've found another publication that's done the same: Time. It used to be archconservative since its founding in the 1920s. Henry Luce, its founder, used to hold an iron grip upon its editorial positions.

I wrote a graduate paper featuring the tight control that Luce exerted upon Theodore H. White, a well-known journalist and writer of some famous books about some presidential campaigns (The Making of the President, etc.), over White's articles about China during World War II. Luce wanted to make sure that Congress read about the heroic exploits of Chiang Kai-shek against the invading Japanese.

That part was accurate: Japan's control over much of China featured the "rape of Nanking," which is documented elsewhere in several books. I could not read more than a hundred pages of one account because the treatment of the Chinese people was so disgusting. I can't even make myself write it here.

White knew that the Communist forces of Mao Tse-tung (old spelling; it's now Mao Zedong in pinyin form) had a strong grip on the countryside, though, and kept trying to work that into his articles. Luce, shall we say, heavily edited those articles, leaving us with the impression that no Communist could fight successfully against the Japanese.

In fact, there had been a civil war raging through the 1920s and '30s, and the two sides fell into an uneasy truce to fight off the Japanese. Once the war ended--with American help--they tore into each other again.

Luce's editing tried to make Chiang look noble and democratic. He was neither. He was a tinpot dictator, running a kind of banana republic, who stole money from the Chinese people to line his own pockets. Trust crumbled around him and had much to do with his eventual loss in the civil war. Despite massive American logistical support, he and his army retreated to Taiwan in 1949, where his government-in-exile established a toehold which continues to this day.

Conservatives lost their minds. We lost China, they wailed, as if China was ever ours to keep. It had a strong foundation into the machinations of Joe McCarthy, who had the country intimidated for four years. And it had no small role in our tragic, failed entrance into Vietnam's affairs.

Luce's informational control, and a well-established Cold War mentality, kept us from recognizing Mao's government until the early '70s, when Richard Nixon tried to formulate a wedge between China and the Soviet Union by visiting China. Our image of China as victim of Communist corruption and domination wasn't inaccurate, but the additional truth about Chiang took a long time to emerge. We went with the truth we preferred.

Partly because of that, I was a constant subscriber to Newsweek, published by The Washington Post Company, and a far more balanced publication. Newsweek didn't last, and is now trying to publish online. It is shell of what it used to be, trying to find itself again.

Only recently have I looked at Time again. I gave it another chance. It has changed its approach. It is far more balanced; some would say liberal. I got a subscription--something I would not have possibly imagined even ten years ago.

This week's edition has its 100 Most Influential People. What it chose to feature, or shall we say who, shows that it has morphed its philosophy into a far more worldly approach, open to change, tracking younger dynamics. Here are a few examples:

• A feminist, Arussi Unda, who called for a national strike in Mexico this past March 9;
• Sister Norma Pimentel, who supports migrants seeking refuge from Mexico;
• Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opan Tometi, the founders of Black Lives Matter;
• Nury Turkel, U.S.-educated attorney, who has worked to build a Uyghur human rights movement;
• Lina Attalah, Egyptian journalist, whose publication, Mada Masr, has been blocked by the government but continues publishing;
• Blikis, an 82-year-old political organizer who resists the politics of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi;
• Felipe Neto, digital influencer in Brazil against the fascist inclinations of president Jair Bolsonaro;
• Selena Gomez, well-known American singer who has pledged to raise $100 million for mental health services in underserved communities over the next ten years;
• Yo-Yo Ma, who has posted video performances called #Songs of Comfort, joined by the likes of James Taylors, Carole King, and the Indigo Girls;
• LASTESIS, a Chilean feminist performance collective, attacking victim blaming and slut shaming; and
• Speaking of Chinese, Zhong Nanshan, epidemiologist and physician, leading the investigation of China's Covid-19 outbreak; and Zhang Yongshen, whose team published the first genome of the Covid virus which enabled scientists to begin developing tests for it.

And that's just twelve of them. Until I read about them, I'd heard of just two of the above list. They have also noted the undeniable influence of people like Bolsonaro, Modi, Xi Jinping, and of course 45. They haven't walked past them, but they've done so with the caveats that they deserve.

I don't know what happened or when--again, I'm just recently back in awareness--but Time has thrown off its stodgy self and re-emerged as a mover and shaker. It's great to see. It's exciting.

Once again, the world moves regardless of efforts to hold it back. That's what conservatives and reactionaries here don't want to see, or if they do, they're desperate to keep a toehold rather than even grudgingly adjust. All the talk about disrupting the election is about that and only that, because it's now clear that they've lost their grip. They have to try to utilize the official mechanics of infrastructure to hold back change, because history has them on the wrong side. We'll see if it works.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark