I don't think most people are very good at doing that, rather the media ends up shaping their reality itself both subjectively and eventually objectively.

And consider the relative cultural relevance of today's magazines and the historical ones you've chosen.

For all the moaning about how we've lost a monoculture because we don't all watch the same TV channels, I think those people are too young to remember things like LIFE magazine, the big, unavoidable, pictorial shared American experience, never really breaking news but always showing us the zeitgeist in broad strokes.

Today's magazines have niche or tabloid appeal at best.

If you want to see just how much salt you need read a history book with the same delta t from now to then as from an event.

The amount of presentism in 2023 is ridiculous and completely uncritically accepted by most everyone.