A Letter from the Publisher

When readers leaf through TIME this week they may be startled to see a number of changes in our appearance -- this page included. The new format offers different section heads, a new type face for headlines, hairline rules to set off columns of type. Another innovation: secondary headlines to announce more quickly what stories are about.

Why these changes? There were several reasons, but perhaps most important was our increasing use of fast-breaking color photographs. These, we thought, required a simpler, cleaner-looking environment. Managing Editor Henry Grunwald finds the new design "neat and orderly. It should encourage discipline and emphasize organization, which is at the heart of the newsmagazine principle. But this sense of order will not inhibit us. Quite the contrary, it will make the occasional splash, the bold visual gesture easier."

This, of course, is not our first new format. The typography of TIME'S first issue (March 3, 1923) was used with minor modifications for 15 years. In 1938 a more modern type face was adopted for a cleaner, more contemporary look. Our last complete redesign came in 1971. We feel that each of the for mats was faithful to the TIME spirit, but changed with changing needs and visual tastes.

Walter Bernard, our new art director, who took on the task of redesigning TIME last February, set out to create a look of "elegant strength." Says Bernard: "We hope our readers get used to the new format quickly. Ultimately it is still background --good background for good writing and good photographs."

Our cover story this week is about America's greatest newspaper, the venerable New York Times, and how it has come to flourish anew under its fourth publisher, Arthur Ochs ("Punch") Sulzberger. Many of the interviews were done by Reporter-Researcher Regina Cahill, and Associate Editor Donald Morrison, who has been running our Press section for three years, wrote the story.

Morrison takes a critical look at many aspects of the Times, but came away impressed by the paper's completeness and ubiquity. Says Morrison with a pinch of hyperbole: "If a tree falls in the forest and there is no New York Times reporter there to record it, the tree never fell. But then there are so many Times reporters around the world that hardly a tree falls that isn't recorded."

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