A Tale from the Mythic Days of Magazine Expense Accounts | Hacker News Reader

A Tale from the Mythic Days of Magazine Expense Accounts

vanityfair.com

67 pointssecondary16 comments

Today I learned, that Time magazine, once the most powerful media organ in the world, had the same person as its only art critic, for 31 years.

That's right, one of the most important gatekeeper positions (in the world) for something as elusive as "art" remained with the same person for 31 years.

Thank god for the internet, where interesting, arty things organically bubble up to my attention (reddit, hacker news, stack exchange), without this guy deciding whether they're important enough to warrant my attention.

Interesting he was kept on for so long. Not sure if you could say Time is much of a "gatekeeper" in the art world though. The guy himself comments on how it wasn't a super important role at Time.

It may have been a super important role in the art world without being a super important role at Time, though.

Without wanting to be like "I know more than everyone about art", I have "moderate" insight into the contemporary side of the art world (a couple of friends are dealers in NY, I take a passing interest in goings on and auctions etc) and from what I've seen Time isn't taken as seriously as publications like Art+Auction. It's entirely possible that I've missed something though but I wouldn't call this guy an Ebert of art.

Are you seriously debating the importance of Time magazine? It's not about your art friends, it's about the hoards of people who look at Time and model their lives after it.

Not at all. I'm just saying I don't consider it hugely important in the context of the art world (both buyers and sellers); completely agree that in the past Time had plenty of sway in the areas of politics/capital markets etc. Anyways, don't want to drag this on too much, it was a great article either way!

Do hordes of people look at Time and model their lives after it? I haven't seen it in a while, but surely most of the art it discusses is out of the price range of most of us.

Time is a pale, sickly shadow of its former self. At one time not only would most of the people you know have a subscription, but it was unavoidable anyplace you had to wait.

And yeah, people absorb culture from what they read, even if they can't afford what they see.

He seems pretty upfront that the very existence of his post was more due to benign neglect than any serious belief in arts coverage.

Wait, that was it? I was waiting for the legendary tale of expense account derring-do, and then the article was over. All that fuss for "my date spent way too much on dinner but I spotted my boss across the restaurant with his mistress and he picked up the tab out of embarrassment"?

In his defence, the bill would have been really large.

I once worked at a magazine where they bought a large luxury house somewhere in Europe on the basis that they might use it for the odd photoshoot

This web page is annoying to use on Safari on my iPad. Every time I scrolled down, it would bounce up and down for several seconds, as though something above the visible part of the page reloaded every time I scrolled.

I guess VF hasn't cut beverage expense accounts for its developers yet :)

I wish people wouldn't downvote legitimate site-design complaints. A lot of the readers here are web devs, and it's not that uncommon for creators to read the HN comments on their articles. Everyone needs to be reminded that good, sturdy design is important, and that clever tricks are more likely to break your site than provide any real value.

Fun read. Not much of a way to run a business though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com