American Scholar (Autumn 1967)
By Ralph J. Gleason
"For the reality of what's happening today in America, we must go to rock & roll, to popular music."
Washington Post (April 23, 1969)
By Nicholas von Hoffman
"'Rolling Stone is on the line between so many dichotomies,' said Wenner.
'We're between underground versus above-ground press, between newspaper and magazine, between being a trade paper and a consumer paper, between dope and music.'"
The New York Times Book Review (April 14, 1974)
By Alix Nelson
"To mark the publication of 'The Rolling Stone Reader,' we'd like to offer a bird's eye view of a journalistic phenomenon."
GQ (April 15, 1985)
By E. Graydon Carter
"Jann had a vision and he was able to inspire other people with it. What made Rolling Stone work was that there was somebody who was devoting every ounce of energy he had to the magazine."
New York Times (October 19, 1997)
By Jon Pareles
"Whether you respect it, hate it or mock it, everyone accepts a premise that Rolling Stone has cultivated over the last 30 years: it is the preeminent journal of popular music and the culture around it."
New York Magazine (March 27, 2000)
By Michael Wolff
"Jann Wenner has unleashed his new People-killer magazine, Us Weekly. His secret weapon? Not celebrity snaps and juicy dish but 200,000 supermarket-checkout pockets."
Media Week (May 1, 2000)
By Keith Dunnavant
"Us Weekly's war on People represents the most audacious gamble in recent magazine history — Wenner's $50 million personal bet on a bold circulation strategy and the transcendence of his editorial vision."
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nineteenth Annual Induction Dinner (March 15, 2004)
By Cameron Crowe
"Like rock & roll itself, Rolling Stone was a rare and private thrill. And like me, rock fans were sprouting deeper feelings and feeding their passion with editor Jann Wenner's smuggled messages from the front. It was clear even then that Wenner pored over and sculpted every word in the magazine."
New York Times (December 25, 2005)
By Timothy O’Brien
"The thousandth issue of Rolling Stone will tip its hat to the trove of musicians, entertainers and politicians who have inhabited its pages since its founding in 1967."
Wall Street Journal (April 12, 2006)
By Brian Steinberg
"Long considered a maverick in magazine-industry circles, Jann S. Wenner has a message for his peers who are trying to figure out how to link their paper-and-ink publications to digital media: Don't forget the printed page."
Washington Post (May 4, 2006)
By Peter Carlson
"Hunter S. Thompson is dead and the Capri Lounge is defunct, but Rolling Stone keeps rolling along. The magazine's 1,000th issue features a neo-psychedelic, pseudo-Sgt. Pepper, holographic, 3-D cover."
The Independent (London) (May 10, 2007)
By Robert Love
"Over the years many writers have come through the portals and delivered great pieces. The story behind the story can be as remarkable and telling as the story itself."
ABC News (May 11, 2007)
By Bill Weir and Sarah Rosenberg
"'Rolling Stone really stands for something and is not afraid to make its point of view known, whether it's about music or movies or popular culture or politics,' said Wenner."
USA Today (June 11, 2007)
By David Lieberman
"Forty years after founding Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner still prides himself on a keen sense for what's on the cutting edge of pop culture."
The Daily Californian (August 20, 2007)
By Stephanie M. Lee
"Forty years after launching, Rolling Stone continues to report exhaustively on music and politics, and has become a monumental force in pop culture."
Business Week November 2, 2007
By Jon Fine
"It is Friday (October 26), Jann Wenner is sitting at his desk, glasses pushed up on his head, marking up and showing off an editor's letter from the third fortieth anniversary issue of Rolling Stone."
Business Week (November 12, 2007)
By Jon Fine
"As Rolling Stone celebrates its 40th anniversary, its founder and impresario Jann Wenner will be the last to reap the trappings of moguldom from a relatively small media company, with revenue around $375 million."
New York Times (August 11, 2008)
By Richard Peréz-Peña
"On October 30, 2008, Rolling Stone, whose large format has stood out on magazine racks for more than three decades, will adopt the standard size used by magazines."
The Wall Street Journal (September 9, 2008)
By Russell Adams
"Next spring, Wenner Media plans to introduce a fashion quarterly designed to give readers a guide to dressing like the celebrities who appear in the magazine's weekly pages."
The Sydney Morning Herald (October 2, 2008)
By Patrick Donovan
"The Rolling Stone founder, who is credited with dragging the counterculture into the mainstream, has not only survived the parties and turmoil his magazine has reported on for the last 41 years, he has become one of the most successful independent publishers in history."