PEOPLE Is Celebrating Its 50th Anniversary in 2024 — Read Our Editor-in-Chief's Letter About the Milestone
"In honor of our 50th, we'll be highlighting some moments, big and small, that we've covered over the past five decades," Editor-in-Chief Wendy Naugle writes
This letter, written by PEOPLE Editor-in-Chief Wendy Naugle, appeared in the Jan. 8 issue of PEOPLE.
On Aug. 1, 1973, Otto Fuerbringer, a former editor of Time who was overseeing magazine development, typed out a memo (or maybe his secretary did) to the company’s top brass. Otto was known for being controversial and influential, and outlined an idea that was both: to launch a magazine called PEOPLE.
At the end of the Vietnam War and the Nixon years, the magazine, he wrote, would reaffirm “the indisputable fact that what really interests people is other people.”
Otto believed some specific ingredients would make the magazine a huge success: “the cover should catch your appreciative eye,” “the succession of dramatic pictures should make turning the pages irresistible,” and “the short stories and brief text blocks should encourage immediate reading.”
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In short order, a “dummy” test issue with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on the cover was commissioned; available only on newsstands in upstate New York, it was an immediate hit, and the magazine officially launched in 1974.
The prospectus came to me by way of Landon Jones, the editor of this magazine from 1989 to 1997. I’d pressed him for some of his favorite PEOPLE stories over lunch last fall, and he found the document in one of his boxes of memorabilia. To hold the original, typed document 50 years later? Pretty cool.
Even more striking? Just how much of what Otto and his team laid out remains core to what we do today.
Some proposed sections no longer exist (RIP “Jocks”). Reviews were verboten; now our Picks section (page 27), led by the incredible Tom Gliatto, is a vital service in a world where you can find more than 18,000 hours of content on Netflix alone.
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But the subjects we cover are the same — people “in all walks of life, all social stations, all positions and professions, all avocations and all locations. Mostly, of course, the top people: the talented and the authoritative, the inventors and the craftsmen, the smart and sometimes foolish, those with luck and those with daring.”
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We’ll continue bringing those stories in these pages and on PEOPLE.com. And in honor of our 50th, we’ll be highlighting some moments, big and small, that we’ve covered over the past five decades.
All of it is possible because of something else Otto identified as key to our success: “A great deal of the strength of the magazine will depend on the continued zest of the editors.”
I’ve never worked with a livelier bunch than this crew, each of them excited to chase every tip, capture the most irresistible photographs and deliver the news to you on Instagram or the printed page or wherever you get your PEOPLE fix.
Here’s to 50 more years.
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