PEOPLE Is Celebrating Its 50th Anniversary in 2024 — Read Our Editor-in-Chief’s Letter About the Milestone

This letter, written by PEOPLE Editor-in-Chief Wendy Naugle, appeared in the Jan. 8 issue of PEOPLE.

August 1, 1973 Otto Fuerbringer, former editor Time who oversaw the magazine’s development, typed a memo (or perhaps his secretary did) to the top of the company. Otto was known for being controversial and influential, and he hatched an idea that was both: start a magazine called PEOPLE.

At the end of the Vietnam War and the Nixon years, the magazine would, he wrote, reaffirm “the undeniable fact that what people are really interested in is other people.”

Otto believed that some specific ingredients would make a magazine a great success: “the cover should catch your appreciative eye,” “a series of dramatic images should make page-turning irresistible,” and “short stories and short blocks of text should encourage instant reading.”

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A “dummy” test edition with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on the cover was soon commissioned; available only on newsstands in upstate New York, it became an instant hit, and the magazine was officially launched in 1974.

March 4, 1974 PEOPLE magazine cover.

The prospectus came to me through Landon Jones, editor of this magazine from 1989 to 1997. I asked him for some of his favorite PEOPLE stories over lunch last fall, and he found the document in one of his memorabilia boxes. Keep the original, typed document 50 years later? That’s great.

Even more impressive? Much of what Otto and his team set up remains the foundation of what we do today.

Some suggested parts no longer exist (RIP “Jocks”). Reviews were forbidden; now our Selections section (page 27), run by the amazing 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 topics we cover are the same – people “in all walks of life, all social positions, all positions and professions, all occupations and all places. Mostly, of course, top people: talented and authoritative, inventors and craftsmen, smart and sometimes stupid, those with luck and those who are daring.”

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We’ll continue to bring those stories to these pages and on PEOPLE.com. And in honor of our 50th year, we’ll highlight some of the moments, big and small, that we’ve covered over the past five decades.

PEOPLE prospectus letter; Liz Taylor cover in 1973.

All of this is possible because of something else that Otto identified as key to our success: “Much of the magazine’s strength will depend on the continued passion of the editors.”

I’ve never worked with a more lively group than this crew, each and every one of them excited to hunt down every tip, capture the most irresistible photos and deliver the news to you on Instagram or print or wherever you get your PEOPLE fix.

Here’s to another 50 years.

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Source: HIS Education