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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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061289
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06128900.029
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1990-09-22
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FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 16
Our colleagues in the newspaper business can be forgiven for
occasionally thinking there is something leisurely about putting
together a magazine that comes out only once a week. That is rarely
true, and it certainly wasn't last week. On Saturday we were ready
to go to press in the U.S. and Canada with a cover story on the
frightening tide of violence among American youths when we heard
news of the massacre in Beijing. Shortly before midnight, with the
death toll rising into the hundreds, Executive Editor Ronald Kriss
made the decision to change the cover. Then, as if things were not
complicated enough, he heard that Ayatullah Khomeini had died in
Iran. That story too is in this issue, even though it occurred only
hours before the presses were set to roll.
The first alert came from Correspondent David Aikman, a former
Beijing bureau chief who had returned there from his present base
in Washington to help with our coverage. "The army has made a
semi-serious effort to break into Tiananmen Square," he reported.
"The police launched a tear-gas attack, and a number of people were
injured. Unpleasant incidents are taking place. We saw six people
carried off. Huge numbers of bicyclists and pedestrians are in the
streets. There is a feeling that a serious move may be tried."
Soon thereafter, Beijing Bureau Chief Sandra Burton, who was
with the crowds in Tiananmen Square when the shooting began,
reached Assistant Managing Editor Karsten Prager. A strategy for
coverage was formulated, with Aikman, Burton and Correspondent
Jaime A. FlorCruz alternating between typing out details of the
carnage and heading back out to the streets to gather more
information. In New York City, Contributor Jesse Birnbaum and Staff
Writer Howard G. Chua-Eoan sat down at their computer terminals and
began updating the story that Associate Editor Jill Smolowe had
finished Friday evening. Picture Editor Michele Stephenson sorted
through color photos coming in by satellite, and Deputy Art
Director Arthur Hochstein prepared the new cover. Sunday morning,
as the sun was rising over Manhattan, we were done.
The story on America's violent youth remains in the magazine.
The only element we lost was the arresting collage that Frances
Jetter, an accomplished New York artist, was still finishing up at
2 o'clock Saturday morning. That's why, in a break with our
tradition, we thought we'd show you the cover that almost made it.