Getting and spending II

Editors are control freaks. (UMass historian Carlin Barton says that’s nothing new. At Rome’s gladiatorial games, sponsors were called editors and could decide a vanquished warrior’s fate.) And so I’m surprised at how calmly I report that the current UMass will be nearly as much news to its editor as its readers. Although I assigned the stories last summer, unexpected personal circumstances meant relinquishing my hold early on.

     But my absence of several months was one of those blessings in disguise that optimists are always discovering: The staff rushed into the breach and did itself proud while we reaffirmed a constructive way of working.

     When I became the magazine’s editor in 1995, I chose not to fill my own regular writer’s position, but to spend that money on freelancers, making space in UMass Magazine for dozens of voices and visions not possible in a totally in-house publication. This fall it allowed us to hire editors Marietta Pritchard and Terry Allen to help produce this issue.

     These are changing economic times, and one area of concern, especially on public campuses, is privatization. How much should we rely on “outside vendors,” how much do ourselves? – a big question with more than one answer depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

     At UMass Magazine the goal includes imagination, energy, and community. It isn’t useful to think of “ourselves” as separate from a wider creative community. Thus our freelance policy proved practical in a pinch this fall. Similarly our advertising policy, which begins now.

     One letter-writer doubts that we can sell space without selling our soul. We think if we’ve been able to do it so far, we’ll be able to continue. The magazine’s budget has thus far come entirely from the administration. To keep up with a growing circulation, we’d like it to come from many sources.

     Of course there are potential pitfalls. But then, navigating pitfalls is among the raisons d’etre of the control-obsessed editor. So keep an eye on us. Keep us honest. And send us your advertising. This mag is for you.

— Patricia Wright