Mr. Wienke, help me out on this -- Re: FW: General Ashcroft make his move

[Richard Stevens]

--- Jonathan Wienke <JonathanW at gbgcorp.com> wrote:
> 
> I get the NRA's American Rifleman magazine. The July
> issue also has
> an article about Ashcroft's letter, which does not
> quote the rather
> lengthy footnote. However, it does contain a legible
> image of BOTH
> pages of the letter, including the ENTIRE text of
> the footnote. This
> is hardly the action of an organization bent on
> distorting Ashcroft's
> view on the Second Amendment. Stupid editing on the
> part of the
> America's First Freedom team, perhaps, but not an
> organization-wide
> conspiracy.
> 
> Jonathan Wienke
> 

Mr. Wienke, 

I paged through the entire July 2001 issue of American
Rifleman, and maybe I'm just blind as the proverbial
bat, but I don't see the article to which you refer
that quotes the entire Ashcroft letter.  On what page
is it?

The July 2001 issue of First Freedom is the one
featuring the Ashcroft letter -- that I have received
thus far.

On the point you raise:  maybe it was merely a bad
editorial decision for the one magazine.  Fine, and we
can forgive that.  But, ask this question:  in what
kind of workplace environment could this kind of
editing decision be made?  

Remember that more than one editor had to approve the
final copy. This is not just a typo.  More than one
person had to consciously decide to omit relevant
material without telling the reader.  

I have to wonder if other sorts of "editing decisions"
that massage the facts and distort the truth are being
made ... and we readers don't know it.  

Maybe it was entirely innocent.  Then NRA should
promptly apologize, correct it and publish the full
text in the following issue.  Let's see if they do.  

--Richard Stevens

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