There is a provocative passage in The Folks at Home, latest book by Margaret Halsey (With Malice Toward Some). It is: ". . . The word 'communications' is misleading. 'Communication' in the dictionary sense means a two-way exchange. But who ever argues with a movie? Who talks back to TIME and LIFE? To assume that no body wants to is taking too much for granted."

I agree that it would be taking too much for granted. I have always assumed that everybody wants to talk back to TIME--and does. Many of you frequently talk back, in your letters, in person, and in other ways. And we hope that you will go right on doing so. We are listening.

Without listening--to thousands of people every week--TIME'S correspondents, researchers and writers could not hope to report the news with any degree of authority. At the same time, they are also listening to what is being said about TIME, its news coverage, its editorial judgments and its stand on important public issues. I am sure TIME'S editors share with me the fre quent experience of being launched into long discussions about TIME--both at the office and away from it. Not long ago, for example, I was a guest on the television program Youth Wants to Know, where a group of high-school students subjected me to some of the most searching questions about the meaning and motives of journalism that I have ever encountered.

At least one member of TIME'S staff currently has a full-time job of personal communication. He is John Scott, about whom I wrote you in this space last year (Oct. 6). He speaks before college audiences and groups of busi nessmen.

Scott discusses world events, but he also explains some of TIME'S beliefs about journalism. He probably experiences more back-talking from the people he meets than anyone else on TIME'S staff. The students are usually most outspoken, challenging him with such questions as: Is TIME objective? The answer: TIME has certain basic convictions, as well as a sense of obligation to evaluate the news in the light of these convictions. We have seen a similar approach being shared by an increasing number of people who deal with the news. One recent example is an editorial in Palmer Hoyt's Denver Post, which said: "The pure factual objectivity which most newspapers have sought has often been a will-o'-the-wisp . . . Who, what, where, when and why no longer answer all the questions. 'What does it mean?' is an important question that newspapers will try, increasingly, to answer."

A related question that Scott is often asked: Does TIME'S interpretive journalism usurp the reader's right to do his own thinking? That could be answered most simply by referring to the letters through which many of you talk back to TIME, and in which you clearly exercise the right to do your own thinking. The answers to your letters, written by members of TIME'S Letters department, make it evident, I hope, that TIME does listen hard to what you have to say. Every week, the Letters department distributes, to the staff, a mimeographed summary of the mail that reaches us, called the TIME Letters Report. Because the Letters section in the magazine has space for only a few of the thousands of letters you send us, this report is compiled to give TIME'S staff a better idea of what our readers are writing. TIME'S editors read the Letters Report avidly.

There is one other way of communicating with TIME that is immensely important to us--one that shows up in our circulation statistics. We are happy to report that the statistics show approval. More people are currently reading TIME than ever before. One recent issue, in the week of Feb. 23, reached an alltime high of 2,180,000 copies sold around the world.

You can see, then, that millions of people talk back to TIME, in one way or another. We want them to keep on talking, and we promise to continue listening attentively.

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