Time for a Change

Time, which shifts to Friday publication next month, is shrinking in another way. The magazine is cutting its rate base -- the weekly circulation guaranteed to advertisers -- from 4 million to 3.25 million, and raising the newsstand price by a buck, to $4.95. Newsweek, published by The Washington Post Co., sells 3.1 million copies, and U.S. News & World Report, 2 million.

Anxiety is running high at Time, with insiders saying that numerous staffers could be laid off as early as next month. Some worry that Time could become too much of an opinion magazine rather than one that breaks important stories. But Stengel is promising "our usual mix of reported pieces, reported analysis and opinion."

Same-Sex Sniping

James Dobson, who heads Focus on the Family, cited the work of two veteran researchers this month in a Time column arguing that Mary Cheney's pregnancy is wrong. Now the researchers are crying foul.

The conservative religious leader argued that Cheney and her lesbian partner will fall short as parents because children need a father.

"I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work," New York University professor Carol Gilligan wrote Dobson. She said he had taken her research out of context "to support discriminatory goals that I do not agree with."

Kyle Pruett of Yale Medical School wrote that he was "startled and disappointed" that Dobson had "cherry-picked a phrase to shore up highly (in my view) discriminatory purposes."

A Focus on the Family statement says that Pruett is trying "to distance himself politically from the use of his scientific conclusions" and that Dobson did not represent Gilligan as opposing same-sex parenting. "The question is not, 'Did Dr. Dobson apply their research only to political stands they agree with?' but rather, 'Is the essay true to what these individuals have written?' We believe that it is."

Time spokeswoman Ali Zelenko says the magazine's role is "to moderate the debates on today's most controversial subjects and present a wide spectrum of views we believe are worth listening to whether we agree with them or not."

Faith-Based Journalism

When New York Times reporter Diana Henriques launched a series on government regulation of religious programs, the paper's Web site posted a bio that described her professional qualifications.

There was also this: "Throughout her life, she has been an active member of various Protestant congregations, serving for several years as an elder at a suburban Presbyterian church and currently serving as the senior warden at an urban Episcopal church in New Jersey."

Henriques says that "it seemed appropriate to be candid about that. I have no reason to hide my religious faith," especially when tackling "a topic that people don't instantly think the New York Times has any expertise in." She says the passage was not offered "with the purpose of inoculating me from criticism from religious groups."

When she was writing about problems with military insurance in 2004, Henriques says, "the tone changed" when she told interview subjects, after being asked, that her father, mother and husband have served in the Army. On the latest series, she says, many people asked whether she had religious experience.