If print news media is on the way out, then magazines will be the ones to turn out the lights. Their longer features make for more timeless content and in-depth analysis than daily, disposable newspapers can offer. Sudden events are often chronicled in newspapers, as I witnessed just this week when I visited the Leominster News Agency newsstand and found shelves upon shelves of yellowed papers from the day after Election Day 2008. But whereas newspapers will tell you what happened, magazines will tell you what it means.
The year 2010 marks the beginning of a new decade (though not the new decade, depending on who you ask), making it an appropriate time to look back at what one magazine called "The Decade from Hell". The Magazine Publishers of America have chosen their own medium to represent the last ten years, arranging covers from 44 different publications into the following montage:
The chronological gap between events you recognize may lead you to wonder, "What about all the intervening years?" They're all there, but at just two minutes in length, the video moves them along pretty quickly.
For a more studied look at a longer period of periodicals, the American Society of Magazine Editors also has a gallery of the 40 greatest magazine covers, 1965–2005.