Henry Luce, founder of Time Magazine, founded Fortune Magazine in 1930 a few months after the 1929 stock market crash. Despite the onset of the Great Depression, Luce went ahead with the magazine launch and more surprisingly, the first issue of Fortune Magazine cost $1. At the time, other magazines and newspapers cost about five cents.
The first issue of Fortune Magazine set a new standard for business magazines. The first issue was oversized, printed on heavy cardstock paper and included art and visual designs. This was a great departure from the business magazines of the time, which were mostly numbers and statistics printed in black and white. Notably, Fortune Magazine featured photography by Margaret Bourke-White, a photojournalist who would become famous for her Life Magazine photos, and Walker Evans was the photography editor from 1945-1965. Along with its business savvy, the magazine was lauded for its social conscience.
Approximately 30,000 subscribers signed up to receive the first issue. Until 2005 Fortune Magazine was a monthly publication. In 2005 it became a bi-weekly. The magazine covers all aspects of business including people, trends, companies and ideas. According to the magazine, the current circulation is 857,000.
The magazine is published by Time Inc’s Fortune/Money Group. Fortune magazine’s major competitors are Forbes Magazine and BusinessWeek Magazine. Fortune Magazine shares an online presence at CNNMoney.com with Money Magazine and Fortune Small Business.
The famous Fortune lists are sought-after by every industry. The “Fortune 500” is probably the most famous. It is a list of the top 500 American public corporations by gross revenue. In 2008 Wal-Mart topped the list with Exxon Mobil in second. Fortune Magazine also boasts the “Fortune Global 500,” a ranking of the top 500 corporations by gross revenue around the world.
Besides the famous rankings, Fortune Magazine features several other special issues each year like a technology issue, an investing issue and a management issue. In the most recent “tech special,” which hit stand in July 2008, the magazine’s features were an article on the first electric supercar, Kleiner venture firm and a handful of profiles and stories on various personalities making headlines in the business world including Brian Hunter, John Koza and Bill Campbell.
Currently, hot business topics that Fortune Magazine is a good resource for are the credit crisis, personal finance in a declining economy and small business issues.
Business Products on our marketplace
|
For more on Fortune Magazine and other business magazines, visit http://www.magazines.com/ncom/mag?subject=6&id=4180399946284
Jessica Vandelay is a free-lance writer in New York City.
|
Additional Articles From -
Home |
Business