Quote,unquote: Time magazine in freefall

And now Time, the greatest newsmagazine ever, is in freefall. Readers are bailing, advertising is down (some 30 percent or more when last checked), and one senses that staff resumes are being updated as this is writ. Clearly, the redesign, relaunch and restaffing has been a disaster.

-- Folio: columnist John Brady, speculating, not altogether tongue-in-cheek, about Time magazine needing to reduce its frequency and become a quarterly.

An anonymous commenter wrote the following in response:

[Editor] Rick Stengel has utterly ruined Time. Of course, all newsmagazines are in tough straits at the moment, but Stengel killed Time when he took over and decided -- brilliantly -- that he'd cut the reporting budget and spend the money on high-priced columnists and cultural observers. Very smart: add more of the fact-free bloviating that's available everywhere online, and ditch the fact-generating reporting that few publications are doing these days. He's essentially turned Time into a silly, frivolous blog.