home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
021389
/
02138900.056
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-17
|
2KB
|
40 lines
FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 4
We have two kinds of correspondents here at TIME: those
stationed in bureaus across the globe, and you, our readers, who
are often illuminated, amused or just plain alarmed enough by a
TIME story to write us. A case in point: our issue naming the
endangered earth Planet of the Year. As of last week, the story has
drawn 1,687 letters, the largest outpouring of mail for a Man of
the Year issue since TIME selected the Ayatullah Khomeini in 1979.
"The story definitely struck a chord," says Nancy Chase, who,
along with fellow reporter-researcher Megan Rutherford, helps
select and edit the 20 or so missives that appear every week. Among
our recent correspondents: George Bush, who disputed our statement
that the median U.S. family income had remained relatively constant
since 1977, and Peter Ueberroth, TIME's 1984 Man of the Year, who
praised the endangered-earth story.
The job of answering the approximately 1,000 pieces of mail
that TIME receives every week falls to Amy Musher, chief of the
letters department, and her staff of nine. Reader reaction ranges
from the whimsical (a man from Fairport, N.Y., responded to a story
on how disposable packaging contributes to air pollution by writing
directly on a McDonald's container) to the intensely curious (a
subscriber asked about the origin of a quilt that appeared in a
photograph of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's tent). Readers have
even asked us to track down people in TIME pictures who resemble
long-lost college roommates (the resemblance is almost always just
that). After we reported on the 100th birthday of Esperanto,
readers tested our knowledge of that language. Wrote one: "Mi
dankas vi pro instro in Esperanto" (Thank you for the Esperanto
lesson).
So that readers may reach us more quickly, we've joined the
fax age; the number is (212) 522-0907. Meanwhile, there's always
a bag of letters delivered the conventional way for Chase and
Rutherford to peruse. "We have just run stories on three subjects
that always generate mail: abortion, capital punishment and gun
control," says Chase. "We're going to be swamped."