MEMO from the Editor
MEMO from the Editor A MATTER OF TIMING Whatever virtues we may claim for The Progressive (and there are a few), we make no pretense of "objectivity," at least in the sense that the mass media...
...I guess that puts us in our place...
...We urge outside writers to exercise the same freedom...
...Mostly to accommodate newsstand operators, who account for a small but important portion of our circulation...
...This is the December issue, even though these words are being written a couple of days before Halloween...
...If this magazine carried the accurate cover date of November 1981, there is a strong likelihood that it might not reach many newsstands until December, when it would be "out of date...
...The Progressive was locked up when it was set in metal type...
...If you believe you may qualify, please write fully to our publisher, Ron Carbon, giving references, background, and salary needs...
...today it is set by computers, and instead of locking it up we paste it down...
...No sooner had I reported in this space that the White House had renewed its subscription to The Progressive than The New York Times reported that President Reagan and his staff get two dozen copies of each issue of the right-wing megaphone Human Events—and most of them are delivered hot off the press by messenger...
...Our usual solution is to say it happened "in October," though by doing so we lose some of the image of urgency that is so dear to journalists...
...We worry about the possibility that a major news break affecting an article or editorial in The Progressive will occur between the time we go to press and the time the Postal Service chooses to deliver the magazine...
...Lawrence Walsh, who joined our staff as an associate editor with the November issue, is a thirty-six-year-old Philadelphian with impressive and relevant experience on The Detroit Free Press, The Texas Observer, The Washington Post, and other publications...
...Our circulation director, Margot Olmstead, will be leaving at the end of the year, and we hope to find an experienced replacement who has knowledge of fulfillment operations, statistical reporting and analysis, direct-mail and other promotion and marketing procedures, financial management, and staff operations...
...Take the issue you are reading right now, for example: It was edited in October, went to press the first week of November, and will reach most of its subscribers, we hope, long before Thanksgiving...
...To suppliers and printers and mail carriers, to truckers and advertisers and key-entry operators, to artists and writers and sundry others, but especially to readers of The Progressive and contributors to its Membership Fund—our thanks and our hopes for a year of progress and peace...
...The editors of this magazine feel free—feel obliged, in fact—to let...
...If we publish such a piece, should it appear in our March 1982 issue—March 28 was, after all, the date of the accident—or in our April 1982 issue, which will have reached most subscribers by the anniversary date...
...All of this inevitably breeds some confusion, for us as well as for subscribers...
...We believe subscribers are better served when our opinions are readily apparent than when they are carefully hidden and, as is often the case in "objective" publications, injected by sly subterfuge...
...There were at least half a dozen candidates we could cheerfully have hired, but we had room for only one...
...What's more" we hope to find someone who shares The Progressive's political interests and commitments...
...Newsdealers like to display "current" magazines on their racks, but national and regional newsstand distributors tend to take their time—especially with small-circulation publications like The Progressive...
...We should...
...But it is dated December...
...But if we have little regard for so-called objectivity, we do feel a deep obligation to be fair, accurate, and truthful...
...Even more impressive is his irrelevant experience as a university teacher, combat cameraman for CBS-TV's Saigon bureau, cod trawler deckhand, forest fire lookout, coal miner, refugee relief worker in Asia and Africa, and Nieman Fellow at Harvard...
...When that happens—and it's bound to happen from time to time—there's nothing we can do about it, except look foolish to those readers who don't understand the timing involved in publishing a monthly magazine...
...With that as background, it is time to confess that month in and month out for many years now, we've published a big, blatant lie in every issue of The Progressive—right on the front cover and on each even-numbered page inside the magazine...
...We were swamped with applications—many of them from people highly qualified...
...Should we, then, take this opportunity to extend season's greetings and year-end best wishes to all of the people who have helped The Progressive survive (and even grow a bit) in 1981...
...The views presented in these pages may be contentious, but the information ought to be as reliable as we can make it...
...A certain recklessness about facts tends to bedevil many publications on the Left, diminishing the one asset they should have in abundance: credibility...
...the readers know where we stand on the great and small issues we address...
...MEMO from the Editor A MATTER OF TIMING Whatever virtues we may claim for The Progressive (and there are a few), we make no pretense of "objectivity," at least in the sense that the mass media like to use that word...
...When subscribers received the November issue a month ago, several asked why William Steif's cover article on "The Palestinians" made no mention of the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat...
...Our November issue, as it happens, was "locked up" at the printer's on October 5— the day before Sadat was shot...
...Furthermore, we intend to keep right on doing it...
...Once again we have an opening on The Progressive's staff, but this one, I suspect, may be more difficult to fill...
...I'm referring, of course, to the deceptive dating that is standard practice at this and most other magazines...
...Why the advance dating...
...Locked up," like many other printing terms, is an anachronism...
...If we are commenting on an event that took place in October—for example, the summit conference at Cancun, Mexico—should we refer to it as having happened "this month" or "last month" or "the month before last...
...Last summer The Progressive advertised that it would soon have an opening for an experienced writer and editor...
...We hope you'll understand...
...This is a partial list...
...Recently, we've discussed the possibility of an article observing the third anniversary of the nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island...
...We try to avoid falling into that trap...
Vol. 45 • December 1981 • No. 12
