ERIC_NO:
ED271767
TITLE:
"Mid-Week Pictorial": Pioneer American Photojournalism Magazine.
AUTHOR:
Kenney, Keith
PUBLICATION_DATE:
1986
ABSTRACT:
In 1914 (22 years before the inception of "Life" magazine), the "New York Times" began publishing "Mid-Week Pictorial" to absorb a flood of
war pictures pouring in from Europe. Several sociological and technological
forces shaped "Mid-Week Pictorial" as a pioneer of American photojournalism
magazines, including the development of the halftone process, and later
the rotogravure process. The strength of "Mid-Week Pictorial" was its
use of several large, well-reproduced photographs to illustrate important
world news events. With the coming of peace, editors of "Mid-Week" realized
that changes in the magazine would be necessary, and the magazine was
slowly transformed from one of "news" photographs to a feature magazine.
After a period of declining circulation, the magazine was sold in 1936
to Monte Bourjaily, who transformed the weekly by adding staff photographers
and photo essays, expanding the magazine, and improving the layout to
present the news in pictures as well as in text. The new format included
serial novels, book excerpts, and cartoons, as well as wire photographs,
and movie, theatre, fashion, and sports news. Largely ignored by historians,
the four month period between its sale to Bourjaily and its demise in
1937 brought innovations significant to American magazine photojournalism.
Despite those innovations, "Mid-Week" failed just as the heavily promoted
"Life" magazine was selling one million copies. But it had adopted a
photojournalistic format before "Life," and so deserves recognition for
its contributions to pictorial journalism. (HTH)
MAJOR_DESCRIPTORS:
News Reporting; Periodicals; Photojournalism;
MINOR DESCRIPTORS:
Journalism; Photography; Social History;
IDENTIFIERS:
*Journalism History; Life Magazine; *New York Times
PUBLICATION_TYPE:
150; 060