Fortune (1-year)

- The most in-depth feature stories among the three magazines. They are thoroughly researched and Fortune works hard to interpret the facts and draw conclusions, as opposed to just aggregating and reporting information.
- More than either of the other two, Fortune will profile prominent executives, giving you a unique window into their philosophy and how they rose to prominence.
- The investing section near the back is always decent and there's a reasonably good focus on technology, both devices and companies.

Why is it my least favorite?

- Fortune clearly has a liberal bias, with frequent articles on employee rights, racial or gender-oriented issues, philanthropic causes such as AIDS, and the general plight of the poor, the elderly, or working mothers. Nothing wrong with that, and some of these articles are eye-opening. But I mainly read business magazines with an eye toward investing, so these types of articles fall outside that scope.
- Yeah, there are too many ads and special advertising sections. It is a necessary part of the world of magazines (or else you'd be paying triple the price for a subscription). But it's still annoying.

Although they seem to be substitutes for each other, Fortune, Forbes, and BusinessWeek each provide something different enough that I see the value in subscribing to all three (and I have been doing so for a decade). If you're looking to go beyond the weekly headlines and want business-oriented articles that don't always have an investment angle, then Fortune seems to be the best bet.


The CEO Business Journal   November 29, 2004
Bryan Carey (Houston, TX)
26 out of 28 found this review helpful

Financial magazines are in great abundance on the newsstand shelves and one of the best known among them is Fortune. This publication is popular for many reasons, foremost among them being the annual Fortune 500 rankings, which presents the corporations in the United States in a ranking list based on sales.

Does Fortune have much else to offer besides this annual ranking? Yes and no. There is some good reading to be found here from time to time, with Fortune writers presenting some good articles on a diverse range of topics from taxation, to employee benefits, to political regulation of business. But in other ways, Fortune's primary focus makes it the type of magazine that few can relate. Most of what you read in Fortune is aimed at CEO's and other high- ranking corporate officers. Articles that discuss how a CEO successfully contained costs and helped increase shareholder value make for some ok reading, but they are not the type of articles that most readers can relate to.

Fortune is very much a corporate publication, and while it does present a few articles on personal finance, it would be better if it contained more. Also, it would be nice if there was a more personal dimension to this magazine. Along with more articles on personal finance and investing, I would like it better if it included stories of actual families illustrating what they have done to achieve their personal goals.

Fortune magazine will continue to remain one of the definitive publications in its field for corporations and for CEO's in particular. It could use a few improvements and a little better focus, but it's still a decent magazine to read. Even if you don't own your own business, Fortune does provide some useful tips for business success.



Great articles, but disorganized a bit, plus too much Ads.   March 26, 2002
Fan Wang (Beijing, China)
25 out of 30 found this review helpful

I am royal reader to Businessweek and Fortune. I love both, but which is better? Fortune is like the fashion magzine in the business world, and Businessweek is more news centric. Fortune always has at least 5 or 6 very interesting featured articles about people, companies, or the economy.They are always insigtful, personal (as if the writer is talking to a friend), well researched, and perfectly structured. These long essays is the core of Fortune, but the rest of the magzine, columes, personal finances and so on, aren't as good. 50% of the magazine seems to be ads, and the contents are not as tightly connected together in a clear manner as the Economist or Businessweek. That's why I think it's like a fashion magzine. On the other hand, Businessweek doesn't have articles as well written, but comes weekly and covers everything important during that week or so, which gives you a complete view of the business world. Both magazines are fasinating to read, so what are you waiting for?


Good magazine, but too many ads   October 31, 2001
16 out of 20 found this review helpful

This is a great magazine, but there are just too many
ads. I was once so frustrated that I counted the number of
pages with ads. I was surprised to find that it was almost
65-70% of the magazine.


Best Money Magazine available.   October 28, 2001
Geoff Easton (Bainbridge Island, WA United States)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful

It seems that the what people wanted in a money magazine in the boom times became distorted. Too often they became either vehicles for 'lifestyle' articles or cheerleaders for a particular sector or investing methodology. Fortune is a welcome standby. It's very corporate (I believe it is a Time/AOL company) but it does not really pull any punches. Solid reporting and a nice breadth of topics make it one of the few magazines I read from start to finish on the day it arrives. Also important is that it's political persuasion is mixed, it is certainly not a mouthpiece for Conservative or Libertarian causes. If you need a personal finance magazine, this is it.