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- <text id=90TT0916>
- <title>
- Apr. 09, 1990: From The Publisher
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Apr. 09, 1990 America's Changing Colors
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 4
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> How healthy is Mikhail Gorbachev? Who made the best career
- move last week? Who is more outrageous, Clayton Williams or Gus
- Savage? And why might James Baker go to Wyoming for more than
- the fishing and beautiful scenery? You can discover the answers
- to all these questions in our expanded, one-page Grapevine
- section, now running at the front of the magazine. First
- introduced in Nation two years ago, Grapevine offered readers
- an insidey look at politics in Washington and across the
- country. We'll still give you a behind-the-scenes look at those
- who govern us, but now the whole world is our stage, from
- Hollywood to the Pentagon, from Steinbrenner to Milken. "The
- purpose is to be fun and lively while still being informative,"
- says senior editor Walter Isaacson, who will oversee the
- section.
- </p>
- <p> The task of gathering many of the items and tracking down
- the accuracy of the section falls to reporter-researcher David
- Ellis. Known to colleagues as "Mr. Insider," Ellis has a keen
- ear for odd information and irreverent observation and is a
- storehouse of facts about the famous and infamous. He fondly
- recalls, for example, that Jimi Hendrix had a disastrous turn
- as an opening act for the Monkees in 1967. As comfortable with
- sports trivia as he is with political arcana, Ellis considers
- 1972 a noteworthy year because a New York Yankee (Rich
- McKinney) made four errors in one game and Archie Bunker
- received a vote for Vice President at the Democratic Convention
- in Miami Beach.
- </p>
- <p> Ellis joined TIME in 1985 after writing news for a Boston
- radio station and working in London as an intern for The
- Economist magazine, where he wrote about subjects as varied as
- business, science and British politics. But he says he is
- fascinated by off-beat items because they are "a good way to
- find out what motivates people in the news. Sometimes it's the
- overlooked fact or deed that is an important part of the
- mind-set of decision makers." Concurs senior writer Paul Gray,
- who is writing Grapevine: "While these items don't in themselves
- make a full TIME story, they provide information and a unique
- view of the news." For example, who curtly dismissed the Great
- Wall of China as "just a pile of bricks"? And who offered to
- help topple Manuel Noriega on the cheap? Turn to page 27 and
- find out.
- </p>
- <p>-- Louis A. Weil III
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-