How did Time magazine have such a fast turnaround?

June 9, 2004 10:12 AM

OK -- Regan does at roughly 3:00pm Saturday. Monday at roughly 2:00, the obituary issue of Time magazine arrives in my mailbox. Question: How in god's name did they do that? Even if if they had the issue sitting on pallets waiting to go (which they didn't because there was non-Regan material in there) how did they get the USPS to deliver it on the next business day?

On preview --- I know, its Reagan

posted by rtimmel to Media & Arts (20 answers total)

I'd imagine a magazine as large as Time is not all printed at the same locale, rather having regional printing facilities (explaining the timely delivery) and that they had the Reagan obits and articles pre-rolled and ready to drop into which ever edition was due to come out at the time of his death. I'd imagine they were pretty much ready to pull their scheduled material in favor of Reaganalia at a moment's notice, especially given the news about his "ok, now it's REALLY failing" health over the previous week.
posted by GriffX at 10:18 AM on June 9, 2004

Most publications have obituaries pre-written for high-profile celebs and politicians. The father of a friend of mine wrote an obit for the Pope several years ago for the Globe & Mail... When the inevitable happens, only small details (exact cause and time of death) need to be added....
posted by Robot Johnny at 10:20 AM on June 9, 2004

I think rtimmel's question, though, is how did he get it in his mailbox on Monday when Reagan died Saturday afternoon - I don't know the answer; it just seems like remarkably fast delivery time.
posted by drobot at 10:40 AM on June 9, 2004

TV stations have vast libraries of pre-prepared obits for candidates deemed likely to pop their clogs in the near future. Should the need arise, they can roll the 'end credits' at a moments notice. I'm sure large publications would do the same.
posted by gravelshoes at 10:41 AM on June 9, 2004

Response by poster: All good points, but my real question is more on the delivery side. How was the issue delivered on Monday when it could not have been put into the system before Sturday evening? Can Time\Warner "wake up" the Post Office on Saturday evening or Sunday to get the mags into circulation? Did it have trucks show up at each and every post office on Monday morning and convince them, long-standing, highly bureaucratic, government organizations, to drop their normal routine and slot the mags in for Monday delivery. Especially since, if I am not mistaken, Time/Warner pays only book/periodical postage.

(A coworker theorizes that they mailed them on Thursday and had an intern standing by at the hospital with a pillow on Saturday, just in case, but I think that’s unlikely.)
posted by rtimmel at 10:45 AM on June 9, 2004

I worked as a printer of weekly magazines in a previous life, a LONG time ago. If distribution works the way it did 25 years ago, I can tell you that these magazines are printed not as one piece, rather the runs are 4 page (covers), 8, 16, and 32 page "signatures", some of them with breaking news, others with features which printed earlier the previous week. All of the sigs are gathered together at the bindery, which is located in the same plant as the printing press. Once the magazines are assembled, stapled (actually "stitched"), and trimmed, and addressed for delivery they are sent out for expedited delivery.

Also, magazines are printed in regional plants. If you live in Chicago, for instance, odds are the magazine was printed in Wisconsin. This allows for late breaking news and local ads to be inserted and lower shipping costs.

It wouldn't surprise me to hear that the cover graphics and at least some of the copy for the Time issue on Reagan were prepared well in advance. This is more common with events like national sports championships (i.e. super bowl).

On preview, printers and the post office ar 7/24 operations, and, indeed the magazines would be sorted over the weekend for delivery Monday.
posted by SteveInMaine at 10:54 AM on June 9, 2004

As far as preparation in advance: This has come up a couple other times on the front page, once for Reagan and once for Cheney. Also of interest when searching for this were the predictions of the reaction here to Reagan's death (the comment linked is the first in a bunch that discuss it).
posted by whatzit at 11:07 AM on June 9, 2004

Also, media had more lead time than you think. The family quietly warned the White House on Friday, and the administration immediately leaked that confidence to the press. You can bet that at 3:01 Saturday the delivery trucks were unloading at the post office hub. (The bulk mail dept apparently keeps much later hours than the front office. When I've run down to the hub near midnight on tax day, the whole building is locked up tight except for bulk mail which is abuzz with activity.)

Oh, and not only do publications routinely pre-write the important obits, they also sometimes release them prematurely.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 11:11 AM on June 9, 2004

The New York Times is printed in Chicago on the Tribune presses - there's no postage involved, you know? It's just delivered via some delivery service.

And obits are regularly produced years in advance. I worked at a broadcasting museum here in Chicago, and people would come by to gather materials on local luminaries like Studs Terkel as well as high profile folks like Reagan. (Studs is a long way from dead, by the way.)

Everything is good to go and in the can. The Pope, for example, is expected to be the next major figure to pass on. Every major news outlet has had their tribute/obit/retrospective ready to go for the past decade, at least.

What makes things complicated is when someone dies unexpectedly. Princess Diana caused newsies to lose all sorts of sleep, I expect. JFK Jr. Too.
posted by aladfar at 11:25 AM on June 9, 2004

As a few have mentioned, the real key is that the Post Office (not your local offices but the big sorting facilities) is cranking 24/7. You and I cannot get any service on Sunday, but someone like Time Warner has a wee bit more clout.
posted by jalexei at 11:33 AM on June 9, 2004

Even you and I can, at the right post office. For the main post office/sorting facility here, although the service windows aren't open Saturday or Sunday, the drop boxes outside have stated collection times several times a day, seven days a week, and I presume they go directly into the sorting process, which goes on 24/7. I've dropped cards in there Saturday morning and had them delivered in another city on Monday.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:56 AM on June 9, 2004

What steveinmaine said (but we call them "forms")

The Reagan section was already done and ready to be transmitted at any moment to the pre-press house, or straight to the printing plant. The cover could easily have also been ready, with just a date change needed before sending. (I've done last-minute changes when necessary even after printing had already started. It's very expensive.) I'm sure Time uses either R.R. Donnelly or Quebecor (the 2 biggies--they have plants all over)

It's a fun process to watch.
posted by amberglow at 3:48 PM on June 9, 2004

In conjunction with what aladfar said above. I think it's a mistake to assume that the US Postal service was used at all. Getting out a timely issue on a major event, and the prestige that it brings to do so, is probably worth the cost of either delivering it themselves or paying someone else to do so. They may have local distributors anyway, whose regular job it is to drive the magazines from the local printing place to the vendors, and they just had those guys working overtime last weekend.

It can be hard to concieve sometimes that the money would really be spent for an operation of such magnitude, but remember that we're talking about a) a publication that depends on being seen as a leading weekly news source, and b) a publication owned by AOL/Time-Warner, a conglomerate that has more money than god.
posted by bingo at 4:19 PM on June 9, 2004

bingo: I, presently, do not get Time. But, I am almost 100% sure that Time is always sent via the USPS. As posters above have said, they probably get the copies of Time to the post office sometime Saturday night or Sunday all around the country. If they do it in enough places, they can be pretty sure that most people will get their copies on Monday.

I do get Newsweek, and that used to always come on Monday. But, apparently they changed where they inject it into the Postal system since now it almost always arrives on Tuesday.
posted by skynxnex at 5:15 PM on June 9, 2004

Time is always sent via the USPS.

Only to subscribers.
posted by kindall at 5:29 PM on June 9, 2004

newstands/candy stores/supermarkets/etc are stocked/delivered by private distributors, not subscription copies.
posted by amberglow at 5:58 PM on June 9, 2004

The NYT broadcasts issues to printers nationwide via satellite; perhaps Time does, too.
posted by trondant at 7:14 PM on June 9, 2004

He's talking about how it ended up in his mailbox.....I asked a friend at Time about it and he said they routinely go to press on Saturday - meaning there was nothing terribly unusual about the distribution. The scramble wasn't to get the edition in the mail but just to jam in the canned obit material.


I guess the Post Office does sort Sunday.


(Saddam's arrest broke on a Sunday and the magazines managed to put out a cover story, even though that all had to be written fresh.)
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:28 PM on June 9, 2004

Amberglow (OT): Wow, it HAS been a while since I was in the business. Donnelly was the 1,000 pound gorilla back then, and Quebecor wasn't on the radar (AFAIK). It looks like Quebecor bought out Quad Graphics, which was the the other strong publishing company in the midwest back when. I worked for a division of Regensteiner, which is now defunct.

How I don't miss working 12 hour nighttime shifts on the weekend.
posted by SteveInMaine at 3:17 AM on June 10, 2004

Not to mention that most news periodicals come presorted. My Newspeak with the Reagan issue came on Tuesday, and the address label has the barcode and the carrier route information listed so that the post office only has to do minimal handling. Plus many airport post offices are open 24/7. The LA Airport post office is that way, and SFO was for years until fairly recently (they close at 6 on weekends).
posted by calwatch at 10:49 PM on June 10, 2004