NEWS used to be defined as the unexpected--or what's new, and the man who bit the dog was trotted out solemnly as the favorite object of journalistic curiosity. But TIME takes a different view. Increasingly, the real business of journalism is not to report the newest transitory "scoop" or to record the latest accident (though FIVE KILLED IN HIGHWAY WRECK still has a local urgency). Our own job, in a world that gets more complex all the time, is to sort out the essential from the transitory, to get to the bottom of conflicting claims, to pierce through the propaganda and the puffery, to try to get the facts right and to make the conclusions sound. In doing so, we must deal with the familiar as well as the bizarre, and with the foreseeable as well as the unexpected.

In fact, a lot of today's news is foreseeable. On a date well established in advance, a book is published and becomes reportable "news." Theaters have their opening nights, movies their release dates, and governments and religions their scheduled ceremonials. Everyone is free to treat of them at the same time, and in the sharply competitive field of. journalism (newspapers, radio, TV, magazines) this creates an impulse to be different. Some concentrate on the sideline trivia. Others try to be first with news of a great concert by talking about it before it happens, which is easy but not apt to be informative. We confess to a general prejudice in favor of talking about the event afterward--to review how well Artur Rubinstein actually played rather than to anticipate his reception from a desire to appear first.

How TIME treats foreseeable news is well illustrated by this week's cover story. Along with everybody else, we knew of the coming "million-dollar Rembrandt sale" months ago, and prepared for it by photographing the painting well in advance for the cover. Art Editor Bruce Barton and Researcher Deborah Hanson dug deep into the sale of previous great paintings at great prices, and the result is an art bonus--four pages of color reproductions of these masters. Then, building around last week's auction, Barton (with the help of correspondents in London, Paris and Rome) delved into the fascinating story of today's expensive art market. Finally Barton and Researcher Hanson were among the privileged few, along with dealers and bidders, present at the auction.

The importance of the occasion was foreseeable--which enabled TIME to make its preparation. But the suspense --who would buy, how much would he pay?--remained until the event itself. Putting the two together is the way we like to handle Art's Story of the Year.

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