The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Reason ^ | 6/10/09 | Radley Balko & Jeff Winkler

[steve-b]

From William Randolph Hearst's ginned up hysterical stories about marijuana to the "10-cent plague" comic book scare of the 1950s to The New York Times warning of "cocaine-crazed Negroes" raping white women across the Southern countryside, the media has always whipped up anxiety and increased readership via thinly sourced exposes of the next great threat to the American way of life.

And since the British sociologist Stanley Cohen defined the moral panic phenomenon in the early 1970s as hysterical overreactions to imagined threats to social order, no publication has done a better (by which we mean worse) job of scaring the crap out of post-baby boomer America than Time, the top-selling newsweekly that's dropping subscribers like the mythical meth mouth drops teeth. (Hot tip to Time: If you're looking for a cutting-edge panic to get those ad rates up again, we hear people have been freaking out about "sexting" lately.)

As a service to future historians of the long, slow death of the newsweekly, Reason offers this Top 10 list of the most horrifying, silly, irresponsible, or downright ridiculous Time cover panics from the past 40 years....

[frogjerk]

2/3rds of the list is valid stating that Time was absurd. The other 1/3rd of the list is just the usual atheist/libertarian rant garbage.

[PGR88]

To give TIME its due, the 1970’s cover on the explosion of porn and the 1990 cover on use of public foul language seem to be spot on. Both periods could be pointed to as inflection points on in the decline of civil culture and commonly accepted social standards in the USA.

[Deb]

Next week the Time cover is a hospital gurney. Creativity takes a holiday.

[Carl LaFong]

I see steve-b is giving us another link in his syllabus about the ‘absurdity’ of criticizing libertine-ism.

[steve-b]

The list:

10. June 19, 1972: The Occult Revival
9. April 5, 1976: The Porno Plague
8. August 6, 1984: The Population Curse
7. September 15, 1986: Drugs: The Enemy Within
6. May 7, 1990: Dirty Words
5. May 13, 1991: Crack Kids
4. July 3, 1995: Cyberporn: On a Screen Near You
3. Nov 22, 1999: Pokemon!
2. March 19, 2001: The Columbine Effect
1. June 7, 2004: Overcoming Obesity in America

[Durus]

What of the list did you consider to be garbage?

[steve-b]

Nah, just the usual scare-mongering. The only serious error I see in the list is that the item "4. July 3, 1995: Cyberporn: On a Screen Near You" should have been #1 -- it was based on junk science so shoddy that it fell apart instantly once subjected to scrutiny (I've seen 9-11 Truther conspiracy theories that hold together better).

[steve-b]

Next week the Time cover is a hospital gurney.

Is the gurney loaded with Time's financial books and stock certificates on their way to the ICU to be put on life support?

[EyeGuy]

TIME has probably already run 10 covers featuring their Zero Messiah.

For sheer absurdity, those 10 would EASILY supplant any of the other covers throughout TIME’s rapidly declining history.

[abb]

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I don't see TIME’s “gun ownership = suicide” issue. From that edition forward, I have avoided anything published by this company.

[steve-b]

It's be interesting to compare this list with a similar one for the next 40 years... if Time lasts that long.

[Red_Devil 232]

[abb]

TIME, Inc., the magazine publishing division of Time-Warner (twx) is reportedly being shopped for sale. Paper magazines are just not financially viable any more. I give TIME 2-3 more years to live.

[donna]

The other 1/3rd of the list is just the usual atheist/libertarian rant garbage.

So true.

[Deb]

That’s the only possibility.

[a fool in paradise]

I thought it would include the covers when they declared Rush Limbaugh BAD FOR AMERICA and declared the Unabomber a mad GENUIS (someone who MEANT WELL).

[a fool in paradise]

Time-Lies is part of the vast Time-Lies-Warner-Turder empire.

[Retired Greyhound]

This one is the most bizarre. What the hell does that even mean?