THE first function of a newsmagazine is to get the news, and in an age of speed, space and science, big news is often made in the most far-flung extremes of the globe. Such news was made last week when the Air Force rescued a 20-man scientific team from a block of ice in the Arctic. Getting the news this time required extraordinary speed. From his post in Anchorage, Correspondent Bill Smith flew to Fairbanks, waited in 10DEG weather for the arrival of part of the I.G.Y. team. From Boston, Correspondent Ruth Mehrtens drove to Westover Air Force Base to meet returning Strategic Air Command rescue planes. Smith buttonholed a group of the rescued airmen, got his interview, put it on the wires to New York. Correspondent Mehrtens was invited to dinner with the rescue crews at Westover's Officers' Club. Her reporting was finished after midnight, and it was 5 a.m. when she began wiring it in. For TIME'S exclusive story of adventure in the Arctic--and an example of reporting at its best--see NATIONAL AFFAIRS, The Ice-Cube Rescue.

THE second function of a newsmagazine is to know what the news means--and this requires not off-the-cuff punditry but the gathering of more news. Last week TIME correspondents who had covered the campaign went back on the road, dug deep into the precinct facts which gave meaning to Election Year 1958. Thus TIME'S editors could: P: Interpret the true significance of two Democrats who got drowned in an otherwise all-Democratic tide in Massachusetts, see THE NATION, Moderate Mandate. P: Show how the least publicized of all the elections might have the longest-lasting national effect, see box, Election Scorecard. P: Give an intimate account of the sort of political organization that changed the face of the political map, see MINNESOTA, Victory by Organization. P: Find Republicans who thought they saw a new Moses, see REPUBLICANS, And Then There Were Two.

THE third function of a newsmagazine is to get read. As every reader knows, TIME circulates in almost every country in the world. Reader Martin L. Bartling Jr., a Knoxville (Tenn.) housebuilder, had this global fact impressed on him in a way that astounded him--as well as the Knoxville post office. Bartling is the builder of the $13,500 model home, sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders, that TIME told about in BUSINESS in the Oct. 27 issue. Hardly had the magazine reached subscribers when the mail began to pour in--from 49 states, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Some builders did not bother to write; they simply hopped a plane and flew in. The flood of mail increased--from the West Indies, Venezuela, Colombia, British Honduras, Britain, France, Germany and as far away as New Zealand. Bartling does not know when he can get around to answering all the inquiries, but he's glad that he now has pen pals all over the world.

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