The process of putting out a print magazine feels like a small miracle. Tens of thousands of words are overhauled, distilled, and pruned to deadline. Soon enough, the fact checkers take over, mending slipshod logic, lapses of accuracy. All that prose is marched toward shipping week, when the entire shop snaps into furious action. Pages are laid out, art dropped in, headlines hatched. Even working remotely, there is a kinetic force to it. We cross the finish line, flush with adrenalin, shocked we managed the task. Then we restart the clock, test our luck again.
To keep the machinery running for twenty years is no trivial feat. But even though the motions are the same for every issue, the process has undergone a profound adjustment: the gears now turn differently. For starters, our subject matter transformed. COVID-19 challenged long-standing beliefs about society, refocusing our attention on injustices in health care, the economy, and housing. And while we documented these developments, we changed as well. Our ideas about what a magazine could be—and say—were tested. Notions of objectivity that once gave us authority now seemed to conveniently absolve us from taking a position. We could no longer pretend to be above the fray. This special anniversary issue is a golden opportunity to take a step back and assess what happened. What began as a post-pandemic project, in other words, became personal.
