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In These Times

File:In These Times November 2010.jpeg
Editor	Joel Bleifuss
Categories	Progressive news and opinion
Monthly
First issue	November 1976
Company	Institute For Public Affairs
Country	United States
Based in	Chicago
Website	inthesetimes.com
ISSN	0160-5992

In These Times is a politically progressive monthly magazine of news and opinion published by the Institute for Public Affairs in Chicago. In These Times was established as a broadsheet format fortnightly newspaper in 1976 by James Weinstein, a lifelong socialist, with the aid of prominent intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Herbert Marcuse, and Julian Bond.

In These Times is known for its investigative reporting of corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, its coverage of international affairs, and its cultural criticism. It regularly reports on environmental issues, feminism, grassroots democracy, minority communities and the media.

In These Times founding editor and publisher is James Weinstein; its current editor and publisher is Joel Bleifuss. It has a circulation of over 18,000 (2011). As a nonprofit organization, the magazine is financed through subscriptions and donations.

History[link]

In 1976 historian and former editor of Studies on the Left, James Weinstein (1926–2005) launched the politically progressive journal In These Times. He sought to model the newsweekly on the early 20th century socialist paper the Appeal to Reason. "We intend to speak to corporate capitalism as the great issue of our time, and to socialism as the popular movement that will meet it" he told the Chicago Sun Times on the eve of the first issue's release.^[1] While Weinstein himself was involved with both the New American Movement and the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, he wanted the journal to be independent of any one political party or faction. Thus, over the years In These Times has published a wide variety contributors - from anarchists, to union members, to political conservatives.

During the 1980s In These Times won notoriety for its investigative reporting of the Iran-Contra scandal. It has since broken stories on the deliberate destruction of Iraqi water treatment plants by US forces during the first Gulf War, global warming, and on the emergence of Mad Cow disease.

Senior In These Times editor Silja J.A. Talvi won two National Council on Crime and Delinquency PASS Awards (2005, 2006) for her reporting on the impact of three strikes sentencing on African American men, and on the trend toward privatization of the prison system.

In These Times was awarded Utne Reader's Independent Press Award for Best Political Coverage in 2006.^[2]

Contributors[link]

Two of the longest running columns in the magazine are Salim Muwakkil's "The Third Coast," covering race relations, and Susan Douglas's "Back Talk," a critical review of the mass media. David Moberg has reported on labor and political economy for In These Times since the magazine's inception in 1976. The magazine's editor Joel Bleifuss has written for In These Times since the mid-1980s. More stories from his column, "The First Stone," have been included in Project Censored's "Top 25 Censored Stories of the Year" than any other journalist. Other current columnists include H. Candace Gorman, Laura S. Washington, and Terry J. Allen.

Current senior editors include Terry J. Allen, Patricia Aufderheide, Adam Doster, Susan J. Douglas, David Moberg, Salim Muwakkil and David Sirota.

Notable contributors to the magazine have included Alexander Cockburn, Barbara Ehrenreich, Laura Flanders, Annette Fuentes, Juan Gonzalez, David Graeber, Glenn Greenwald, Miles Harvey, Paul Hockenos, George Hodak, Doug Ireland, John Judis, Naomi Klein, Lucy Komisa, Robert McChesney, Rick Perlstein, Kim Phillips-Fein, Jeffrey St. Clair, Jane Slaughter, James Thindwa, Kurt Vonnegut, Joan Walsh, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Fred Weir, Paul Wellstone, G. Pascal Zachary, and Slavoj Žižek.

Layout[link]

Each In These Times issue includes Frontline, Features, Views, and Culture sections.

• The Frontline department consists of several recent news items. A hallmark of Frontline is the Apall-o-meter which highlights particularly ironic or astonishing news quirks.
• The Features section is made up of several longer pieces, including the cover story, and analyses.
• The Views department consists of three to four opinion columns.
• The Culture portion of the magazine features book, film, theatre and music reviews. Other elements of popular culture such as television programming, and fashion are critically examined in this section.

Most In These Times issues run political cartoons from Tom Tomorrow or Terry Laban.

The magazine's tagline has evolved over the years from "The Independent Socialist Newspaper" in 1976, to "The Alternative News Magazine" in the early 1990s, to "With liberty and justice for all..." today.

The ITT List[link]

The ITT List is a blog by the editors and staff of the magazine. It is frequently updated with small news stories which are not published in the print edition.

References[link]

External links[link]

• In These Times website - A portion of ITT content is available free of charge on their website, yearly subscriptions are available for the full print edition
• The ITT List - A weblog from the editors and staff of ITT magazine
• Fire on the Prairie - A podcast (active 2003-2006) with interviews and speeches from progressive leaders

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Times They Are A-Changin'

The Times They Are a-Changin' is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's third studio album, released in January 1964 by Columbia Records.

Produced by Tom Wilson, it is the singer-songwriter's first collection to feature only original compositions. The album consists mostly of stark, sparsely-arranged story songs concerning issues such as racism, poverty, and social change. The title track is one of Dylan's most famous; many felt that it captured the spirit of social and political upheaval that characterized the 1960s.

Some critics and fans were not quite as taken with the album as a whole, relative to his previous work, for its lack of humor or musical diversity. Still, The Times They Are a-Changin' entered the US chart at #20, eventually going gold, and belatedly reaching #4 in the UK in 1965.

Recording sessions[link]

Dylan began work on his third album on August 6, 1963, at Columbia's Studio A in New York City. Once again, Tom Wilson was the producer for the entire album. Dylan had, by the time of recording, become a popular, influential cultural figure.

Eight songs were recorded during that first session, but only one recording of "North Country Blues" was ultimately deemed usable and set aside as the master take. A master take of "Seven Curses" was also recorded, but it was left out of the final album sequence.

Another session at Studio A was held the following day, this time yielding master takes for four songs: "Ballad of Hollis Brown", "With God on Our Side", "Only a Pawn in Their Game", and "Boots of Spanish Leather", all of which were later included on the final album sequence.

A third session was held in Studio A on August 12, but nothing from this session was deemed usable. However, three recordings taken from the third session eventually saw official release: "master" takes of "Paths of Victory", "Moonshine Blues" and "Only a Hobo" were all included on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 released in 1991.

Sessions did not resume for more than two months. During the interim, Dylan toured briefly with Joan Baez, performing a number of key concerts that raised his profile in the media. When Dylan returned to Studio A on October 23, he had six more original compositions ready for recording. Master takes for "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" and "When the Ship Comes In" were both culled from the October 23 session. A master take for "Percy's Song" was also recorded, but it was ultimately set aside and was not officially released until Biograph in 1985.

Another session was held the following day, October 24. Master takes of "The Times They Are a-Changin'" and "One Too Many Mornings" were recorded and later included in the final album sequence. A master take for "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" was also recorded, but ultimately left out of the final album; it was eventually released on Biograph. Two more outtakes, "Eternal Circle" and "Suze (The Cough Song)", were later issued on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991.

The sixth and final session for The Times They Are a-Changin' was held on October 31, 1963. The entire session focused on one song –"Restless Farewell" – whose melody is taken from an Irish-Scots folk song, "The Parting Glass", and it produced a master take that ultimately closed the album.

The songs[link]

	Bob Dylan - "The Times They Are a-Changin'" noicon 19 seconds (of 3:16)
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The Times They Are a-Changin' opens with the title track, one of Dylan's most famous songs. Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. "The Times They Are a-Changin'" had yet to be recorded, but Glover saw its early manuscript. After reading the words "come senators, congressmen, please heed the call", Glover reportedly asked Dylan: "What is this shit, man?", to which Dylan responded, "Well, you know, it seems to be what the people like to hear".^[1]

Dylan recalled writing the song as a deliberate attempt to create an anthem of change for the moment. In 1985, he told Cameron Crowe: ""This was definitely a song with a purpose. It was influenced of course by the Irish and Scottish ballads ...'Come All Ye Bold Highway Men', 'Come All Ye Tender Hearted Maidens'. I wanted to write a big song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close for a while and allied together at that time."^[2]

The climactic lines of the final verse: "“The order is rapidly fadin'/ And the first one now/ Will later be last/ For the times they are a-changin'� have a Biblical ring, and several critics have connected them with lines in the Gospel of Mark, 10:31, ""But many that are first shall be last, and the last first."^[3]

A self-conscious protest song, it is often viewed as a reflection of the generation gap and of the political divide marking American culture in the 1960s. Dylan, however, disputed this interpretation in 1964, saying "Those were the only words I could find to separate aliveness from deadness. It had nothing to do with age." A year later, Dylan would say: "I can't really say that adults don't understand young people any more than you can say big fishes don't understand little fishes. I didn't mean "The Times They Are a-Changin'" as a statement... It's a feeling."^[4]

In 1994, Dylan licensed the "The Times They Are a-Changin'" to be used in an advertisement for the auditing and accountancy firm Coopers & Lybrand, as performed by Richie Havens. Two years later, in 1996, a version of the song by Pete Seeger was used in a TV advertisement for the Bank of Montreal.^[5]

"Ballad of Hollis Brown" was originally recorded for Dylan's previous album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. That version was rejected and the song was eventually re-recorded for The Times They Are a-Changin'. Described by Clinton Heylin as a "'tragic tale of independence and free will' culled from the folk idiom", it is a grim, rural Gothic story of a father killing his starving family ("There's seven people dead on a South Dakota farm").

"With God on Our Side" was first performed at New York's Town Hall on April 12, 1963 (which also happened to be Dylan's debut appearance at that venue). Although Dylan claims it is an original composition, the melody to "With God on Our Side" bears a striking resemblance to "The Patriot Game", the lyrics of which were written by Dominic Behan and the melody borrowed from the traditional Irish folk song, "The Merry Month Of May". Behan called Dylan a plagiarist and a thief, in an attempt to goad Dylan into a lawsuit; Dylan made no response. "The Patriot Game" was originally introduced to Dylan by Scottish folksinger Nigel Denver. Scottish song writer Jim McLean recalls Dylan asking him in late 1962: "'What does it mean, 'Patriot Game'?'... I explained – probably lectured him – about Dr Johnson, who's one of Dominic's favourite writers, and that's where Dominic picked up [the] saying: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.'" NPR's Tim Riley writes: "'With God on Our Side' manages to voice political savvy mixed with generational naivete" as it "draws the line for those born long enough after World War I to find its issues blurry ('the reasons for fightin'/I never did get') and who view the forgiveness of the World War II Germans as a farce."

Dylan follows "With God on Our Side" with a soft, understated ballad: "One Too Many Mornings". "It's the sound of someone too smitten by love to harbor regrets, grown too independent to consider a reunion," writes Riley. One of the more celebrated songs on The Times They Are a-Changin', Dylan would dramatically rearrange it on his legendary 1966 concert tour for a full electric band.

"North Country Blues" tells the story of a mining company's decision to outsource its operations to countries where labor costs are cheaper than in the U.S.A. ("It's much cheaper down in the South American towns/Where the miners work almost for nothing".) The song marks the first time Dylan wrote a narrative from the point-of-view of a woman: the ex-wife of a miner whose work has disappeared. This song has been described by many critics as Dylan's portrait of his home town, Hibbing, Minnesota.^[6][7]

Dylan first performed "Only a Pawn in Their Game" at a voter registration rally in Greenwood, Mississippi. The song refers to the murder of Medgar Evers, who was the Mississippi leader of the NAACP. Civil rights activist Bernice Johnson would later tell critic Robert Shelton that "'Pawn' was the very first song that showed the poor white was as victimized by discrimination as the poor black. The Greenwood people didn't know that Pete [Seeger], Theo[dore Bikel] and Bobby [Dylan] were well known. (Seeger and Bikel were also present at the registration rally.) They were just happy to be getting support. But they really like Dylan down there in the cotton country."

The melody for "Boots of Spanish Leather" was inspired by Martin Carthy's arrangement of the English folk song "Scarborough Fair" (also the melody of an earlier Dylan composition, "Girl from the North Country"). Dylan learned Carthy's arrangement during his first trip to England in late 1962. After finishing his obligations in England (including a brief appearance in a BBC drama, Madhouse on Castle Street), Dylan traveled to Italy looking for his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, apparently unaware that she had already returned to America (reportedly the same time Dylan left for England). While in Italy, Dylan created an early draft of "Boots of Spanish Leather".Salon.com critic Bill Wyman called the song "an abstract classic and one of the purest, most confounding folk songs of the time."^[8]

According to Clinton Heylin's biography of Dylan, "When The Ship Comes In" was written in August 1963 "in a fit of pique, in a hotel room, after his unkempt appearance had led an impertinent hotel clerk to refuse him admission until his companion, Joan Baez, had vouched for his good character." Heylin speculates that "Jenny's Song" from Brecht and Weill's Threepenny Opera was also an inspiration: "As Pirate Jenny dreams of the destruction of all her enemies by a mysterious ship, so Dylan envisages the neophobes being swept aside in 'the hour when the ship comes in'."^[9] Dylan's former girlfriend Suze Rotolo recalls that her "interest in Brecht was certainly an influence on him. I was working for the Circle in the Square Theatre and he came to listen all the time. He was very affected by the song that Lotte Lenya's known for, 'Pirate Jenny'."

"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" tells the story of a hotel barmaid who died after being struck by a wealthy white man. The song was inspired by Dylan's reading a newspaper account of the incident which took place in a hotel in Maryland, in February 1963.^[10]

The closing song of the album, "Restless Farewell" takes its melody from the traditional Irish-Scots song, "The Parting Glass". Dylan's lyrics have an edge due to the way that Newsweek had treated Dylan. In a profile of the singer, published in October 1963, Dylan was portrayed as someone who had lied about his middle-class origins. Furthermore, it was implied that Dylan had plagiarised the lyrics of his best-known composition, "Blowin' In the Wind". Stung by these untrue allegations, Dylan composed a song about the pain of having "the dust of rumor" flung in his eyes. He swiftly recorded the work a few days after the Newsweek profile appeared on October 31, 1963.^[11] The album ends with Dylan's vow "I'll make my stand/ And remain as I am/ And bid farewell and not give a damn".

Outtakes[link]

The sessions for The Times They Are a-Changin' produced a large surplus of songs, many of which were eventually issued on later compilations. According to Clinton Heylin, "perhaps the two best songs, "Percy's Song" and "Lay Down Your Weary Tune", would not make the final album, failing to fit within the narrow bounds Dylan had decided to impose on himself."

"'Lay Down Your Weary Tune'... along with 'Eternal Circle'... marked a new phase in Dylan's songwriting", writes Heylin. "It is the all-important link between the clipped symbolism of 'A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall' and the more self-conscious efforts to come the following year. A celebration of song itself, 'Lay Down Your Weary Tune' was also an admission that there were certain songs 'no voice can hope to hum'."

Riley describes "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" as "a hymn to music's instrumental spectrum... it's about the heightened awareness of nature and reality available to performer and listener in the course of a highly charged musical experience". The song is also rich in natural imagery, often in surreal, musical terms ("The cryin' rain like a trumpet sang/And asked for no applause"). Steven Goldberg writes that the song depicts nature "not as a manifestation of God but as containing God within its every aspect". The Byrds released their own celebrated version of "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" in 1965 on their critically acclaimed second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!.

"Percy's Song" is sung from the point of view of a man who visits a judge in a futile, last-ditch attempt to save his friend from a severe prison sentence. It is based on a tune taken from "The Wind and the Rain", a song introduced to Dylan by Paul Clayton. "'Percy's Song', along with ... 'Seven Curses' and 'Moonshine Blues', showed that Dylan's command of traditional themes, housed in traditional melodies, remained undiminished by the topicality of other efforts", writes Heylin. Fairport Convention recorded their own celebrated rendition of "Percy's Song" on their critically acclaimed third album, Unhalfbricking.

Written some time in late 1962 or early 1963, "Only a Hobo" was also recorded during these sessions but ultimately set aside. Described by Heylin as "a superior reworking of [Dylan's earlier composition] 'Man on the Street' that took as its source the 'Poor Miner's Lament'", the song is sung from the point of view of sympathetic narrator who stumbles upon a homeless man lying dead in a gutter. Rod Stewart later released his own celebrated version of "Only a Hobo" on the critically acclaimed Gasoline Alley in 1970. Dylan himself re-recorded "Only a Hobo" for Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II, only to reject that version as well. He eventually released his own version in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991.

Dylan also recorded demo versions for publishing purposes of several songs on the album. The demos, recorded for his first two publishing companies, Leeds Music and M. Witmark & Sons, were available for many years as bootlegs and were officially released by Columbia Records in October 2010 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964.^[12]

• Boots of Spanish Leather (unreleased)
• Eternal Circle (unreleased)
• Farewell (unreleased)
• Paths of Victory (unreleased)
• Percy's Song (unreleased)
• Seven Curses (unreleased)
• Only a Hobo (unreleased)
• The Times They Are A-Changin (released on The Bootleg Series 1-3)
• When the Ship Comes in (released on The Bootleg Series 1-3)

Here is a partial listing of the known outtakes from the Times sessions. Unless otherwise noted, all tracks are in circulation.

• Bob Dylan's New Orleans Rag - Take 1 (incomplete) (unreleased)
• Bob Dylan's New Orleans Rag - Take 2 (unreleased)
• East Laredo Blues (unreleased; instrumental)
• Eternal Circle (released on The Bootleg Series 1-3)
• Farewell (unreleased)
• Hero Blues (circulating, alternate take can be found on The Genuine Bootleg Series).
• Key to the Highway (unreleased, not circulating)
• Lay Down Your Weary Tune (released on Biograph)
• Moonshiner (released on The Bootleg Series 1-3)
• Only a Hobo (released on The Bootleg Series 1-3)
• Paths of Victory (released on The Bootleg Series 1-3)
• Percy's Song (released on Biograph)
• Seven Curses (released on The Bootleg Series 1-3)
• Suze (The Cough Song) (released on The Bootleg Series 1-3)
• That's All Right (Mama)/Sally Free And Easy (unreleased)
• The Times They Are A-Changin' (Alternate version) released on bonus disc to Love and Theft.
• Walls of Red Wing (several versions recorded during the Times sessions, none circulating. A previous version recorded for Freewheelin' was released on Bootleg Series 1-3.)

Aftermath[link]

On October 26, 1963, three days after recording the final song for The Times They Are a-Changin' , Dylan held a concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. That night, he performed eight songs from his forthcoming third album, as well as several outtakes from the same album sessions (including "Percy's Song", "Seven Curses", and "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"). Columbia recorded the entire concert, but it was decades before a substantial portion of it was officially released (in fact to date the concert in its entirety has not been released). Nevertheless, the performance was well received by the press and audience alike, but its success was to be overshadowed by the events of November 22, 1963.

On that day, at 12:30, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Dylan's friend, Bob Fass, was sitting with Dylan in Carla Rotolo's apartment the day of the shooting. According to Fass, Dylan was deeply affected by it and said: "What it means is that they are trying to tell you 'Don't even hope to change things'." Dylan later claimed that Kennedy's death did not directly inspire any of his songs, but in a manuscript written shortly after the assassination, he wrote: "it is useless to recall the day once more." In another, he repeatedly wrote: "there is no right or left there is only up and down."

Three weeks to the day after Kennedy's assassination, the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee gave Dylan their annual Tom Paine award for his contribution to the civil rights movement. Dylan gave a disastrous acceptance speech at the awards ceremony held at Hotel Americana in New York, at one point claiming he saw something of himself in Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy's assassin. After the ceremony, a number of eyewitnesses reported that Dylan seemed very nervous and was drinking quite heavily before giving his speech.

Legacy[link]

As Clinton Heylin wrote: "in less than six months [Dylan] had turned full circle from the protest singer who baited Paul Nelson into someone determined to write only songs that 'speak for me'... Dylan's ambitions as a writer for the page...may have been further fed at the end of December when he met renowned beat poet Allen Ginsberg, author of Howl and Kaddish." Dylan was already familiar with Ginsberg's work. By now, beat poetry and French symbolists had become an enormous influence on Dylan's work, as Dylan "passed from immediate folk sources to a polychrome of literary styles". In an interview taken in 1985, Dylan said that he didn't start writing poetry until he was out of high school: "I was eighteen or so when I discovered Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Frank O'Hara and those guys. Then I went back and started reading the French guys, Rimbaud and François Villon."

Many critics took note of the stark pessimism on The Times They Are a-Changin', which NPR's Tim Riley later described as "'Masters of War' stretched out into a concept album" due to its "social preening and black-and-white moralism". Critical respect for The Times They Are a-Changin' weakened as the years passed, but the overall consensus continued to be positive.

Nevertheless, by the time it was released on January 13, 1964, Dylan was already entering a new phase in his career, pulling further away from his popular image as a protest singer.

The album was re-released in 2010 with new liner notes by Greil Marcus.^[13]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link
Entertainment Weekly	(B) link
Rolling Stone	link

Track listing[link]

All songs written by Bob Dylan.

Side one[link]

1. "The Times They Are a-Changin'" – 3:15
2. "Ballad of Hollis Brown" – 5:06
3. "With God on Our Side" – 7:08
4. "One Too Many Mornings" – 2:41
5. "North Country Blues" – 4:35

Side two[link]

1. "Only a Pawn in Their Game" – 3:33
2. "Boots of Spanish Leather" – 4:40
3. "When the Ship Comes In" – 3:18
4. "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" – 5:48
5. "Restless Farewell" – 5:32

Charts[link]

Album

Personnel[link]

• Bob Dylan – vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica

Notes[link]

References[link]

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register (it became The Times on 1 January 1788). The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News International, itself wholly owned by the News Corporation group headed by Rupert Murdoch. The Times and The Sunday Times do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1967.

The Times is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, including The Times of India (1838), The Straits Times (1845), The New York Times (1851), The Irish Times (1859), the Los Angeles Times (1881), The Seattle Times (1891), The Daily Times (Malawi) (1900), The Canberra Times (1926), and The Times (Malta) (1935). For distinguishing purposes it is therefore sometimes referred to, particularly in North America, as the "London Times" or "The Times of London".^[2][3]

The Times is the originator of the ubiquitous Times Roman typeface, originally developed by Stanley Morison of The Times in collaboration with the Monotype Corporation for its legibility in low-tech printing. In November 2006 The Times began printing headlines in a new font, Times Modern. The Times was printed in broadsheet format for 219 years, but switched to compact size in 2004 in an attempt to appeal more to younger readers and commuters using public transport. The Sunday Times remains a broadsheet.

Though traditionally a moderate newspaper and sometimes a supporter of the Conservatives, it supported the Labour Party in the 2001 and 2005 general elections.^[4] In 2004, according to MORI, the voting intentions of its readership were 40% for the Conservative Party, 29% for the Liberal Democrats, and 26% for Labour.^[5] The Times had an average daily circulation of 394,102 in March 2012.^[1] An American edition has been published since 6 June 2006.^[2]

History[link]

Front page of The Times from December 4, 1788.

1785 to 1890[link]

The Times was founded by publisher John Walter on 1 January 1785 as The Daily Universal Register, with Walter in the role of editor. Walter changed the title after 940 editions on 1 January 1788 to The Times. In 1803, Walter handed ownership and editorship to his son of the same name. Walter senior had spent sixteen months in Newgate prison for libel printed in The Times, but his pioneering efforts to obtain Continental news, especially from France, helped build the paper's reputation among policy makers and financiers.

The Times used contributions from significant figures in the fields of politics, science, literature, and the arts to build its reputation. For much of its early life, the profits of The Times were very large and the competition minimal, so it could pay far better than its rivals for information or writers.

In 1809, John Stoddart was appointed general editor, replaced in 1817 by Thomas Barnes. Under Barnes and his successor in 1841, John Thadeus Delane, the influence of The Times rose to great heights, especially in politics and amongst the City of London. Peter Fraser and Edward Sterling were two noted journalists, and gained for The Times the pompous/satirical nickname 'The Thunderer' (from "We thundered out the other day an article on social and political reform.").The increased circulation and influence of the paper was based in part to its early adoption of the steam-driven rotary printing press. Distribution via steam trains to rapidly growing concentrations of urban populations helped ensure the profitability of the paper and its growing influence.^[6]

The Times was the first newspaper to send war correspondents to cover particular conflicts. W. H. Russell, the paper's correspondent with the army in the Crimean War, was immensely influential^[7] with his dispatches back to England.

In other events of the nineteenth century, The Times opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws^{[citation needed]} until the number of demonstrations convinced the editorial board otherwise, and only reluctantly supported aid to victims of the Irish Potato Famine. It enthusiastically supported the Great Reform Bill of 1832, which reduced corruption and increased the electorate from 400 000 people to 800 000 people (still a small minority of the population). During the American Civil War, The Times represented the view of the wealthy classes, favouring the secessionists, but it was not a supporter of slavery.

The third John Walter, the founder's grandson, succeeded his father in 1847. The paper continued as more or less independent, but from the 1850s The Times was beginning to suffer from the rise in competition from the penny press, notably The Daily Telegraph and The Morning Post.

During the 19th century, it was not infrequent for the Foreign Office to approach The Times and ask for continental intelligence, which was often superior to that conveyed by official sources.^[8]

1890 to 1981[link]

The Times faced financial extinction in 1890 under Arthur Fraser Walter, but it was rescued by an energetic editor, Charles Frederic Moberly Bell. During his tenure (1890–1911), The Times became associated with selling the Encyclopædia Britannica using aggressive American marketing methods introduced by Horace Everett Hooper and his advertising executive, Henry Haxton. Due to legal fights between the Britannica's two owners, Hooper and Walter Montgomery Jackson, The Times severed its connection in 1908 and was bought by pioneering newspaper magnate, Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe.

In editorials published on 29 and 31 July 1914, Wickham Steed, the Times's Chief Editor, argued that the British Empire should enter World War I.^[9] On 8 May 1920, also under the editorship of Steed, The Times in an editorial endorsed the anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as a genuine document, and called Jews the world's greatest danger. In the leader entitled "The Jewish Peril, a Disturbing Pamphlet: Call for Inquiry", Steed wrote about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

What are these 'Protocols'? Are they authentic? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans and gloated over their exposition? Are they forgery? If so, whence comes the uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in part fulfilled, in part so far gone in the way of fulfillment?".^[10]

The following year, when Philip Graves, the Constantinople (modern Istanbul) correspondent of The Times, exposed The Protocols as a forgery, 'The Times retracted the editorial of the previous year.

In 1922, John Jacob Astor, son of the 1st Viscount Astor, bought The Times from the Northcliffe estate. The paper gained a measure of notoriety in the 1930s with its advocacy of German appeasement; then-editor Geoffrey Dawson was closely allied with those in the government who practised appeasement^{[citation needed]}, most notably Neville Chamberlain.

Kim Philby, a Soviet double agent, was a correspondent for the newspaper in Spain during the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s. Philby was admired for his courage in obtaining high-quality reporting from the front lines of the bloody conflict. He later joined MI6 during World War II, was promoted into senior positions after the war ended, then eventually defected to the Soviet Union in 1963.^[11]

Between 1941 and 1946, the left-wing British historian E.H. Carr was Assistant Editor. Carr was well known for the strongly pro-Soviet tone of his editorials.^[12] In December 1944, when fighting broke out in Athens between the Greek Communist ELAS and the British Army, Carr in a Times editorial sided with the Communists, leading Winston Churchill to condemn him and that leader in a speech to the House of Commons.^[13] As a result of Carr's editorial, The Times became popularly known during World War II as the threepenny Daily Worker (the price of the Daily Worker was one penny)^[14]

On 3 May 1966 it started printing news on the front page for the first time - previously the front page featured small advertisements, usually of interest to the moneyed classes in British society.^{[citation needed]} In 1967, members of the Astor family sold the paper to Canadian publishing magnate Roy Thomson, The Thomson Corporation merged it with The Sunday Times to form Times Newspapers Limited.

An industrial dispute prompted the management to shut the paper for nearly a year (1 December 1978 – 12 November 1979).

The Thomson Corporation management were struggling to run the business due to the 1979 Energy Crisis and union demands. Management were left with no choice but to save both titles by finding a buyer who was in a position to guarantee the survival of both titles, and also one who had the resources and was committed to funding the introduction of modern printing methods.

Several suitors appeared, including Robert Maxwell, Tiny Rowland and Lord Rothermere; however, only one buyer was in a position to meet the full Thomson remit, Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch.

1981 to present: Murdoch-era[link]

In 1981, The Times and The Sunday Times were bought from Thomson by Rupert Murdoch's News International.^[15] The acquisition followed three weeks of intensive bargaining with the unions by company negotiators, John Collier and Bill O'Neill.

After 14 years as editor, William Rees-Mogg resigned the post upon the completion of the change of ownership.^[16] Murdoch began to make his mark on the paper by appointing Harold Evans as his replacement.^[17] One of his most important changes was the introduction of new technology and efficiency measures. In March–May 1982, following agreement with print unions, the hot-metal Linotype printing process used to print The Times since the 19th century was phased out and replaced by computer input and photo-composition. This allowed print room staff at The Times and The Sunday Times to be reduced by half.^{[citation needed]} However, direct input of text by journalists ("single stroke" input) was still not achieved, and this was to remain an interim measure until the Wapping dispute of 1986, when The Times moved from New Printing House Square in Gray's Inn Road (near Fleet Street) to new offices in Wapping.^[18]

Robert Fisk,^[19] seven times British International Journalist of the Year,^[20] resigned as foreign correspondent in 1988 over what he saw as "political censorship" of his article on the shooting-down of Iran Air Flight 655 in July 1988. He wrote in detail about his reasons for resigning from the paper due to meddling with his stories, and the paper's pro-Israel stance.^[21]

In June 1990, The Times ceased its policy of using courtesy titles ("Mr", "Mrs", or "Miss" prefixes) for living persons before full names on first reference, but it continues to use them before surnames on subsequent references. The more formal style is now confined to the "Court and Social" page, though "Ms" is now acceptable in that section, as well as before surnames in news sections.

In November 2003, News International began producing the newspaper in both broadsheet and tabloid sizes. On 13 September 2004, the weekday broadsheet was withdrawn from sale in Northern Ireland. Since 1 November 2004, the paper has been printed solely in tabloid format.

The Conservative Party announced plans to launch litigation against The Times over an incident in which the newspaper claimed that Conservative election strategist Lynton Crosby had admitted that his party would not win the 2005 General Election. The Times later published a clarification, and the litigation was dropped.

On 6 June 2005, The Times redesigned its Letters page, dropping the practice of printing correspondents' full postal addresses. Published letters were long regarded as one of the paper's key constituents. Author/solicitor David Green of Castle Morris Pembrokeshire has had more letters published on the main letters page than any other known contributor – 158 by 31 January 2008. According to its leading article, "From Our Own Correspondents", removal of full postal addresses was in order to fit more letters onto the page.

In a 2007 meeting with the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications, which was investigating media ownership and the news, Murdoch stated that the law and the independent board prevented him from exercising editorial control.^[22]

In May 2008 printing of The Times switched from Wapping to new plants at Broxbourne on the outskirts of London, and Merseyside and Glasgow, enabling the paper to be produced with full colour on every page for the first time.

Some^[who?] allege that The Times' partisan opinion pieces also damage its status as 'paper of record,' particularly when attacking interests that go against those of its parent company – News International. In 2010 it published an opinion piece attacking the BBC for being 'one of a group of' signatories to a letter criticising BSkyB share options in October 2010.^[23]

In March 2012, it became the first British newspaper to formally endorse same-sex marriage.

Content[link]

Copies of The Times and supplements from December 2005

The Times features news for the first half of the paper with the leading articles on the second page, the Opinion/Comment section begins after the first news section with world news normally following this. The business pages begin on the centre spread, and are followed by The Register, containing obituaries, Court & Social section, and related material. The sport section is at the end of the main paper.

[edit] Times2

The Times's main supplement is the times2, featuring various lifestyle columns.^{[clarification needed]} It was discontinued on 1 March 2010 but reintroduced on 11 October 2010 after negative feedback. Its regular features include a puzzles section called Mind Games. Its previous incarnation began on 5 September 2005, before which it was called T2 and previously Times 2. Regular features include columns by a different columnist each weekday. There was a column by Marcus du Sautoy each Wednesday, for example. The back pages are devoted to puzzles and contain sudoku, "Killer Sudoku", "KenKen", word polygon puzzles, and a crossword simpler and more concise than the main "Times Crossword".

The supplement contains arts and lifestyle features, TV and radio listings and reviews.

[edit] The Game

The Game is included in the newspaper on Mondays, and details all the weekend's football activity (Premier League and Football League Championship, League One and League Two.) The Scottish edition of The Game also includes results and analysis from Scottish Premier League games.

Saturday supplements[link]

The Saturday edition of The Times contains a variety of supplements. These supplements were relaunched in January 2009 as: Sport, Weekend (including travel and lifestyle features), Saturday Review (arts, books, and ideas), The Times Magazine (columns on various topics), and Playlist (an entertainment listings guide).

Saturday Review is the first regular supplement published in broadsheet format since the paper switched to a compact size in 2004.

At the beginning of summer 2011 Saturday Review switched to the tabloid format

The Times Magazine features columns touching on various subjects such as celebrities, fashion and beauty, food and drink, homes and gardens or simply writers' anecdotes. Notable contributors include Giles Coren, Food and Drink Writer of the Year in 2005.

Online presence[link]

The Times and The Sunday Times have had an online presence since March 1999, originally at the-times.co.uk and sunday-times.co.uk, and later at timesonline.co.uk.^[24] There are now two websites: thetimes.co.uk is aimed at daily readers, and the thesundaytimes.co.uk site at providing weekly magazine-like content. There are also iPad and Android editions of both newspapers. Since July 2010, News International has required readers who do not subscribe to the print edition to pay £2 per week to read The Times and The Sunday Times online.^[25]

Visits to the websites have decreased by 87% since the paywall was introduced, from 21 million unique users per month to 2.7 million.^[26] In April 2009, the timesonline site had a readership of 750,000 readers per day.^[27] As of October 2011, there were around 111,000 subscribers to the Times' digital products ^[28]

Ownership[link]

John Walter, the founder of The Times

The Times has had the following eight owners since its foundation in 1785:

• 1785 to 1803 - John Walter;
• 1803 to 1847 - John Walter, 2nd;
• 1847 to 1894 - John Walter, 3rd;
• 1894 to 1908 - Arthur Fraser Walter;
• 1908 to 1922 - Lord Northcliffe;
• 1922 to 1966 - Astor family;
• 1966 to 1981 - Roy Thomson; and
• 1981 to present - News International (a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation, run by Rupert Murdoch).

Readership[link]

At the time of Harold Evans' appointment as editor in 1981, The Times had an average daily sale of 282,000 copies, in comparision to the 1.4 million daily sales of its traditional rival The Daily Telegraph.^[29] By November 2005 The Times sold an average of 691,283 copies per day, the second-highest of any British "quality" newspaper (after The Daily Telegraph, which had a circulation of 903,405 copies in the period), and the highest in terms of full-rate sales.^[30] By March 2012 The Times' average daily circulation had fallen to 394,102 copies, compared to The Daily Telegraph's 576,378, with the two retaining respectively the second-highest and highest circulations among British "quality" newspapers.^[1] In contrast The Sun, the highest-selling "tabloid" daily newspaper in the United Kingdom, sold an average of 2,614,725 copies in March 2012, and the Daily Mail, the highest-selling "middle market" British daily newspaper, sold an average of 1,952,524 copies in the period.^[1]

In a 2009 national readership survey The Times was found to have the highest number of ABC1 25–44 readers and the largest numbers of readers in London of any of the "quality" papers.^[31]

Typeface[link]

An example of the Times New Roman font

In 1908 The Times started using the Monotype Modern typeface.^[32]

The Times commissioned the serif typeface Times New Roman, created by Victor Lardent at the English branch of Monotype, in 1931.^[33] It was commissioned after Stanley Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically antiquated.^[34] The font was supervised by Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older font named Plantin as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space. Times New Roman made its debut in the 3 October 1932 issue of The Times newspaper.^[35] After one year, the design was released for commercial sale. The Times stayed with Times New Roman for 40 years, but new production techniques and the format change from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004 have caused the newspaper to switch font five times since 1972. However, all the new fonts have been variants of the original New Roman font:

• Times Europa was designed by Walter Tracy in 1972 for The Times, as a sturdier alternative to the Times font family, designed for the demands of faster printing presses and cheaper paper. The typeface features more open counter spaces.
• Times Roman replaced Times Europa on 30 August 1982.^[36]
• Times Millennium was made in 1991,^[36] drawn by Gunnlaugur Briem on the instructions of Aurobind Patel, composing manager of News International.
• Times Classic first appeared in 2001.^[37] Designed as an economical face by the British type team of Dave Farey and Richard Dawson, it took advantage of the new PC-based publishing system at the newspaper, while obviating the production shortcomings of its predecessor Times Millennium. The new typeface included 120 letters per font. Initially the family comprised ten fonts, but a condensed version was added in 2004.
• Times Modern was unveiled on 20 November 2006, as the successor of Times Classic.^[36] Designed for improving legibility in smaller font sizes, it uses 45-degree angled bracket serifs. The font was published by Elsner + Flake as EF Times Modern; it was designed by Research Studios, led by Ben Preston (deputy editor of The Times) and designer Neville Brody.^[38]

Political allegiance[link]

The Times had declared its support for Clement Attlee's Labour at the 1945 general election; the party went on to win the election by a landslide over Winston Churchill's Conservative government. However, the newspaper reverted to the Tories for the next election five years later. It supported the Conservatives for the subsequent three elections, followed by support for both the Conservatives and the Liberal Party for the next five elections, expressly supporting a Con-Lib coalition in 1974. The paper then backed the Conservatives solidly until 2001.

For the 2001 general election The Times declared its support for Tony Blair's Labour government, which was re-elected by a landslide. It supported Labour again in 2005, when Labour achieved a third successive win, though with a reduced majority.^[39] For the 2010 general election, however, the newspaper declared its support for the Tories once again; the election ended in the Tories taking the most votes and seats but having to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in order to form a government as they had failed to gain an overall majority.^[40]

This makes it the most varied newspaper in terms of political support in British history.^[41]

Sponsorships[link]

The Times, along with the British Film Institute, sponsors the "The Times" bfi London Film Festival.

The Times sponsors the Cheltenham Literature Festival and the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature at Asia House, London.

Notable people[link]

Editors[link]

Notable columnists and journalists[link]

Related publications[link]

[edit] Times Literary Supplement

The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) is a separately-paid-for weekly literature and society magazine.

[edit] The Times Science Review

Between 1951 and 1966 The Times published a separately-paid-for quarterly science review, The Times Science Review. Remarkably, in 1953 both the newspaper and its science supplement failed to report on the discovery of the structure of DNA in Cambridge, which was reported on by both the News Chronicle and The New York Times.

The Times started a new (but free) monthly science magazine, Eureka, in October 2009.

Times Atlases[link]

(Times Books Group Ltd)

• The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, 2007 ISBN 978-0-00-780150-3

In fiction[link]

• In the dystopian future world of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Times has been transformed into the organ of the totalitarian ruling party, its editorials—of which several are quoted in the book—reflecting Big Brother's pronouncements.
• Rex Stout's fictional detective Nero Wolfe is described as fond of solving the London Times' crossword puzzle at his New York home, in preference to those of American papers.
• In the James Bond series by Ian Fleming, James Bond, reads The Times. As described by Fleming in From Russia, with Love: "The Times was the only paper that Bond ever read."

See also[link]

Journalism portal

• List of newspapers by date

[edit] References

Further reading[link]

• Evansâ€�, Harold (1983). Good Times, Bad Times. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-78295-9  - includes sections of black-and-white photographic plates, plus a few charts and diagrams in text pages.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Times

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Times

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Times

• Official website (Mobile)
• The Sunday Times site
• Times World Atlases official website including a History and Heritage section detailing landmark Times atlases
• Archive from 1785 to 2006 – full text and original layout, searchable (not free of charge, registration required)
• Neil, Andrew; Griffiths, Ian; Fitzpatrick, Barry (15 January 2006). "Three views of the industrial dispute twenty years on". The Observer (UK). http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1686500,00.html. 
• The Times editor Robert Thomson lecture online: From the editorial desk of The Times, RMIT School of Applied Communication Public Lecture series
• Anthony Trollope's satire on the mid-nineteenth century Times
• Journalism Now: The Times Winchester University Journalism History project on the Times in the nineteenth century