New Internationalist Issue 278
The material that follows has been provided by New
Internationalist
From this month's editor
One of the great rewards of working here at the New Internationalist
is our editorial freedom. As an editor, once you've plumped for a particular
subject, you can pretty much go for it. There are few jobs in the media that
offer this latitude. It's a challenge but also a real privilege to be able to
comb through the literature, talk to those more knowledgeable than yourself
and finally come to the conclusion that, yes, you're actually beginning to make
some sense out of what at first appeared to be an almost impossibly complex
subject.
Mind you it's not always clear sailing: simply carving out the time to research
and read can be a battle. Running a publishing co-operative, as we do, means
editors are often pulled in four directions at the same time. Unlike the mainstream
media, all of us have to wear several hats at once and I'd be the first to admit
that some of them don't fit that well.
Still, it's the 'intellectual buzz' that keeps us going. But once you've absorbed
all the facts and arguments and come up with some kind of consistent analysis
you're left with trying to make the magazine work in journalistic terms. And
that's another story.
It helps to put ourselves in your shoes. Because we editors
actually start from pretty much the same position as our readers - loaded with
our own quirky baggage of bias, scepticism and curiosity. That understanding
is really the foundation for building a successful magazine 'on-the-page'.
Take this issue on 'green economics'.
When I first I read about 'appropriated carrying capacity', 'biophysical limits
to growth' and the tragic, perhaps irreversible destruction of the earth's functioning
ecosystems, I confess to feeling a tinge of despair. Not unlike some readers,
who tell us that the more they know about the world's problems the more depressed
they feel.
But as I ploughed on and felt the energy and commitment of thousands of people
attempting to define an alternative economic future, that despair faded. I began
to realize that it's impossible to come up with a solution until you fully understand
the problem.
So in this issue I've attempted to do both - to give a clear sense of the down-side
but also to point to the green path beyond.
Because the path is there, though many more of us are needed to help build it.
As an old Zen saying would have it, there's lots more work to do: 'After ecstasy,
the laundry.'
Wayne Ellwood
for the New Internationalist Co-operative
©Copyright: New Internationalist 1996
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