It was, to speak euphemistically, the Deadline from The Underworld. With just a week to go before sending the January 1992 issue of Sojourners to press, we changed the contents of the feature section. Then news editor Brian Jaudon got the flu. And though Jim Wallis had written his "On The Way" column more or less on time, the news about Magic Johnson broke and required a last-minute change in topic.
We had to come up with names for five new departments making their debut in 1992, and our wider margins threw off all our article-length calculations. Plus, we needed extra time to write a back-page ad that would creatively and with only mild desperation ask for your financial help once again.
Karen Lattea couldn't get Bruce Cockburn's people in Canada to send us a copy of his new release, so we had to rely on former Sojourners intern Suzanne St. Yves to buy it in Winnipeg and send it to us. And, in an unprecedented move, we sent Ed Spivey Jr.'s "H'rumphs" column into "read-around" among the staff so we could make a judgment on whether it was hilarious or offensive (hilarious won).
And speaking of offensive, Bob Hulteen's editorial about sports teams' stereotyping of American Indians begged for a graphic portrayal of the Cleveland Indians' horrible "Chief Wahoo" logo. Jim Rice spent hours on a thorough search of the sporting goods stores of Washington, only to settle for an equally offensive logo from a Redskins "On the Warpath" T-shirt.