This has caused me to reminisce. Our first editor was Lloyd London in 1987. His assistant editor was Adam Colwell and Adam soon became the editor with Marni Spletter as his assistant. Just this week Marni sent me some old pictures from the early nineties. It was amazing remembering all of the people that worked here during that time period. It was a very lean time, but we were energized and focused on the mission; to reach our community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the media.
Good News certainly did that and ruffled some feathers. I remember when Adam did a story in 1993 about 3 gay men who had become Christians. Their lives were changed, as I recall two of them became pastors. I thought the article was a wonderful testimony of how God can change lives. But, soon after the article was published we found ourselves under heavy assault. A group calling itself Guerilla Graphix began a campaign in collusion with Tucson Weekly accusing the Good News of being “a decidedly fundamentalist right wing publication whose political purpose is to promote restriction of human rights and civil rights for many people, the environmental movement, women’s right to choose, gay and lesbian rights and many issues involving the education of our youth are systematically attacked by this publication”. They listed our advertisers in their manifesto and pasted it on the front doors of businesses that advertised with us.
Like William James, (the founder of modern psychology), said “there is nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough people will believe it”. They repeated this absurd attack and people believed it. We were devastated financially, but continued on. Then Pamela Jimenez took over as the Editor. The Good News took a nice turn under Pamela’s leadership really focusing on the family.
Then in 1996 the Tucson Weekly published a story about a woman purse snatcher. On the cover they had a picture of the back seat of the woman’s car showing the Good News with a knife on top of it. I remember looking at the picture and realizing that they had dummied up a copy of the Good News and staged the picture. I called the editor and confronted him about it and he admitted that the art director used “license” in creating the cover. The woman had a ton of newspapers in her back seat, including the Good News, and they decided that making her out to be a religious nut was to their liking.
I am sure that the reason Good News was such a lightening rod is that it was so effective in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Never hatefully, always in love, but nevertheless always in the sights of the enemy. Now Good News will no longer be published. I have heard that their may be someone that is considering taking the Good News over. As Jacqueline said, maybe no one should have the privilege of publishing Good News for more than 10 years. My hope and prayers are that someone else will take up the gauntlet.
