A Letter From The Publisher, Feb. 21, 1949

From the comments I have heard, the discussions I have participated in, and your own letters to us, it seems that a favorite indoor sport among TIME-readers is arguing about how they read TIME.

For our own instruction, therefore, we made a most unscientific, undefinitive (but, I think, interesting) survey recently among a number of you as to your TIME-reading habits. Did you read TIME front to back? Back to front? Favorite departments first? Well, those of you who joined in had considerable to say about it, and here, before considering the results of our inquiry, are some of your replies:

“I quickly leaf through the issue, reading titles and looking at pictures to see what’s cooking. On the way I read People and Miscellany. Then I start at the front and read all the way through.”

“It depends on my state of mind. There are times when I deliberately avoid the crises in International and National Affairs and relax with Cinema or Medicine until I am capable of coping with the ‘problems.’ TIME is not to be read hurriedly like a to-be-continued-tomorrow serial because many of TIME’S stories are as timely today as they were a year ago.”

“Start at the front, naturally, and read it through—like any normal person!”

“I read People, Milestones, Cinema, Radio & TV, Theater, National Affairs and Books in that order—much to my husband’s disgust. He’s a cover-to-cover reader.”

“I’m a middle-to-back front-to-middle, holding the baby and bottle in one hand, TIME in the other.”

“I am a busy clergyman and . . . I usually read it from cover to cover because it contains so much in every department that is of value to a pastor.”

“Usually the cover story first, regardless of subject . . .”

“I manage a large farm, and so I take TIME with me in the car and read while waiting for the tractors or trucks to show up or the rain to stop. However, this takes TIME from home, which does not please my wife, who also reads the entire magazine.”

“First, Letters, then I thumb through the issue looking at the pictures until I get to Business, which I read. Then I turn to Religion, to Sport, and after that I go to the front and read straight through to the back cover.”

“Being a business woman, my reading time is limited to reading in bed. As soon as TIME arrives I put it on the bedside table, and it takes me about four nights to complete—front to back. It would be my one choice if I had to give up all other magazines.”

“I’m a skipper. I look at all the ads first, turn to Sport, and then I’m off straight through the magazine.”

The upshot of these and the rest of the replies is that most of those of you who participated read your favorite departments first, a smaller, stauncher number read front to back, and a perverse few read TIME back to front.

Among the Favorite-Department-First men readers, their first seven favorites, in order, were. National Affairs, Business, Medicine, Foreign News, Science, People, International. Women FDFs favored a somewhat different line-up for their first seven: People, Medicine, National Affairs, International, Foreign News, Education, Science.

As you might expect, there was very little choice for favorite position among these first seven departments or, for that matter, among the remainder of TIME’S departments. No department established a clear-cut leadership. What pleased us most, however, was the fact that almost all of you said that, no matter how you read TIME, you read all of it. This is by no means the final word on this subject, and we hope to have more to say about it later on.

Cordially yours,

P.S. How do you read TIME?