Fortune (magazine)

Infobox Magazine
title = Fortune


image_size = 200px
image_caption = The April 30, 2007 issue of "Fortune", featuring its Fortune 500 list
editor = Andy Serwer
editor_title = Managing Editor
frequency = Bi-Weekly
circulation = ~850,000
category =
publisher = Time, Inc., a Time Warner company.
firstdate = 1930
country = Flag|United States
language = English
website = [http://www.fortune.com www.fortune.com]
issn = 0015-8259

"Fortune" is a global business magazine published by Time Inc.'s Fortune|Money Group. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of "Time", "Life", "Fortune", and "Sports Illustrated", grew to become Time Warner, the world's largest media conglomerate, before it was acquired by AOL in 2000. [ [http://www.media-alliance.org/article.php?story=20040514113031555 AOL Eats Time Warner] ] "Fortune's" primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Forbes, which is also published bi-weekly, and BusinessWeek. The magazine is especially known for its annual features ranking companies by revenue. CNNMoney.com is the online home of "Fortune", in addition to "Money" and "Fortune Small Business".

History and organization

"Fortune" was founded by "Time" co-founder Henry Luce in February 1930, four months after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that marked the outset of the Great Depression. Briton Hadden, Luce's partner, wasn't enthusiastic about the idea, but Luce went forward with it after Hadden's October 15, 1929 death (of streptococcus). [Henry Luce & His Time by Joseph Epstein, "Commentary", Vol. 44, No. 5, November 1967]

Luce wrote a memo to the Time, Inc. board in November 1929, "We will not be over-optimistic. We will recognize that this business slump may last as long as an entire year." [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/09/19/8272901/index.htm How the world works] ]

Single copies of that first issue cost $1 at a time when the Sunday New York Times was only 5c. At a time when business publications were little more than numbers and statistics printed in black and white, "Fortune" was an oversized 11"x14", using creamy heavy paper, and art on a cover printed by a special process. [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/Print/fortune/background.html Background] ] "Fortune" was also noted for its photography, featuring the work of Margaret Bourke-White and others. Walker Evans served as its photography editor from 1945-1965.

An urban legend says that art director T M Clelland mocked up the cover of the first issue with the $1 price because nobody had yet decided how much to charge; the magazine was printed before anyone realized it, and when people saw it for sale, they thought that the magazine must really have worthwhile content. In fact, there were 30,000 subscribers who'd already signed up to receive that initial 184-page issue. By 1937, the number of subscribers had grown to 460,000.]

During the Great Depression, "Fortune" developed a reputation for its social conscience, for Walker Evans and Margaret Bourke-White's color photographs, and for a team of writers including James Agee, Archibald MacLeish, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Alfred Kazin, hired specifically for their writing abilities.

"Fortune" became an important leg of Luce's Time/Life media empire, which has grown to become Time Warner. For many years "Fortune" was published as a monthly, but as of September 2005, it is published biweekly. It considers its purview the entire field of business, including the people, trends, companies, and ideas that characterize modern business.

While circulation of the business magazines sector has apparently slumped since 2000. [ [http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/narrative_magazines_audience.asp?cat=3&media=7 Magazine audience] ] , "Fortune" claims their circulation has risen from 833,000 [ [http://www.magazine.org/circulation/circulation_trends_and_magazine_handbook/1603.cfm Circulation trends] ] to 857,000 [ [http://www.timeinc.net/fortune/mediakit/circulation.html "Fortune" media kit] ] in that period.

"Fortune" lists

A theme of "Fortune" is its regular publishing of researched and ranked lists. In the human resources field, for example, their [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/ Best Companies to Work For] list is an industry benchmark. Its most famous lists rank companies by gross revenue and profile their businesses:
*Fortune 500
*Fortune 1000
*Fortune Global 500
*Fortune 100 Best Companies To Work For
*Fortune America's Most Admired Companies
*Fortune Global Most Admired Company

In August 2006, CNNmoney.com published a [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/07/24/8381730/index.htm feature] from "Fortune" magazine which recommended books and websites focused on the world's top five companies, as ranked in the "Fortune Global 500". In a novel twist, each company website was featured alongside a website taking a critical view of the company's activities. For example, the recommended websites for Royal Dutch Shell, listed as number 3 in the rankings, was Shell's own portal website along with royaldutchshellplc.com which focuses on alleged negative aspects of the oil giant. The unstated but logical purpose of the recommendations was to allow the public, investors and shareholders to arrive at a balanced view of each company, taking into account the positive and negative information available from the recommended websites.

"Fortune" on CNNMoney.com

ee also

* Fortune 500
* Fortune 1000
* Fortune Global 500
* Fortune Battle of the Corporate Bands

References

External links

* [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/ "CNN about Fortune magazine" website]
* [http://www.timeinc.com/ Time Inc. website]
* [http://www.timewarner.com/ Time Warner website]
* [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2008/full_list/ List of 2008 100 Best Companies To Work For]
* [http://www.aggdata.com/business/fortune_500 Complete Downloadable List of Fortune 500/1000 Companies - 1955-2008]
* [http://www.exitocoastal.net/fortune.html "Fortune" Magazine covers since 2004]