ustxtxb_obs_1979_06_22_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Demo crat, which in turn incorporated the Austin Forum-Advocate. EDITOR Jim Hightower MANAGING EDITOR Linda Rocawich ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric Hartman EDITOR AT LARGE Ronnie Dugger PRODUCTION MANAGERS: Susan Reid, Beth Epstein ASSISTANT EDITORS: Vicki Vaughan, Bob Sindermann Jr. STAFF ASSISTANTS: Jeannette Garrett, Edward Humes, Matthew Lyon, Donna Ng, Anne Norman. Beverly Palmer. Martha Owen, Karen White, Harris Worcester CONTRIBUTORS: Thomas D. Bleich. Ave Bonar, Berke Breathed, Warren Burnett, Bob Clare. Jo Clifton, Bruce Cory, Keith Dannemiller, Jeff Danziger, Chandler Davidson. John Henry Faulk, David Guarino, Roy Hamric, Doug Harlan, Jack Hopper, Dan Hubig, Molly Ivins, Susan Lee, Tim Mahoney, Maury Maverick Jr., Dave McNeely. Kaye Northcott, Alan Pogue, Lois Rankin. Ray Reece, Laura Richardson, Ben Sargent, John Spragens Jr., Sheila R. Taylor, Stanley Walker, Lawrence Walsh, Eje Wray, Ralph Yarborough A journal of free voices We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. The editor has exclusive control over the editorial policies and contents of the Observer. None of the other people who are associated with the enterprise shares this responsibility with him. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them the editor does not necessarily imply that he agrees with them because this is a journal of free voices. BUSINESS STAFF: Published by Texas Observer Publishing Co., biweekly except for a three-week interval between issues twice a year, in January and July; 25 issues per year. Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Publication #541300. ISSN 0040-4519. years. $36. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilmed by MCA, 21 Harristown Road. Glen Rock, N.J. 07452. POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to The Texas Observer at address below. Editorial and Business Offices 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 7cOrrtif;71 June 22, 1979 Vol. 71, No. 12 The Texas BSERVER r The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1979 Ronnie Dogger, Publisher From the publisher San Antonio, Austin Jim Hightower is resigning the editor’s chair at the Observer in order to research and write full-time on energy issues and to consider making a race for the Texas Railroad Commission. A statewide citizens’ committee has been formed to gather support for his candidacy. I am now accepting applications for the Observer editorship from any and all qualified journalists who may be interested, including, of course, members of the present staff. As the past is a guide, the competition will be stiff. Jim’s time as editor has been a useful and challenging period for the Observer, and we are sorry to lose him. As the Hightower Committee says in its flyer for his candidacy, while he has been in charge the Observer has carried “hard-hitting, well-documented articles on the way the state’s moneyed establishment is putting the squeeze on small businesses, family farmers, and working people. Hightower and the Observer have dug into the dealings of giant bankholding companies, the utility monoliths, food monopolies, oil profiteers, strip-miners, and a dozen other non-competitive industries.” This special focus on the economic power structure of the region, which I had very much in mind when I hired Jim, has been a valuable education for us about the forces that actually govern Texas. While coverage of government, the Legislature, and politics has also continued, Hightower’s period on the Observer will be remembered, I believe, as the years when the journal focused in closely on the state’s power elite. The present staff will carry on during the transition. Each applicant for the editorship should send a vita, a portfolio of his or her published work, and a statement of his or her concept of what the Observer’s direction and the editor’s work should be, to me at 543 Brightwood Place, San Antonio 78209 Applications sent to the Observer office will of course be forwarded to me in San This is a professional opening for an active investigative reporter who can also write and edit well and who is personally devoted to standing and fighting for humane, progressive values. The Observer’s commitments to moral seriousness and to the highest journalistic traditions of accuracy and fairness are well known. The editorial freedom of the Observer editor is legendary in our profession and will continue to be guaranteed. Depending on our finances, the editorial staff may have to be smaller than it is now. In the not-too-distant future, the staff may well become involved in an extensive program for restructuring the Observer and to an extent reconceiving it, with no change in its fundamental purposes. This has been in planning stages now for about a year. Generally speaking, the American progressive movement has done an excellent job of criticizing existing institutions and arrangements and a very poor job of proposing what to do to reform and restructure them. This general situation has obtained at the Observer also, throughout its 25-year history. For a statement of some of the proposals I believe are in order, I refer prospective applicants to my article, ‘I prefer to look forward,’ ” in the Observer, December 27, 1974, in which, in general passages, I stated: “I purpose that we go back to the source and substance of social reality, the lives of the people, and learn from them, 2 JUNE 22, 1979