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Sun Rises Bi-weekly

Sun Rises Bi-weekly image
Parent Issue
Day
9
Month
July
Year
1971
OCR Text

SUN RISES BI-WEEKLY

A MESSAGE FROM THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE, RAINBOW PEOPLE'S PARTY

On May 1 of this year we proudly announced the formation of the Rainbow People's Party with the publication of issue number one of the Ann Arbor SUN. We promised then that the SUN would be a regular, weekly community news service - - and we're glad that, with the people's help, we've been able to keep that promise for what has been eleven straight weeks now.

With issue number 11 we've found it necessary to stop and check ourselves for a minute - -to look at what we've done with the SUN so that we can learn from our mistakes as well as our successes; and try to make the SUN an even better, more effective newspaper for all the people of Ann Arbor. 

The first thing we have to talk about is just how inspired we've been with the response that all of you have given to the paper. Without the people's help we simply would not have been able to do it by ourselves, and working with everyone who has made it happen, all of YOU who have written for, typeset, laid out, advertised in, sold, bought, and read the Ann Arbor SUN has been a very powerful, educational experience for all of us.

The most important thing we've learned is that none of us can do anything A-1 by ourselves, really. And the SUN is just one example of how an organized community of people can get things done once they set out to do it together--the Tribal Council's Park Program is another beautiful example of people 's power as is Ozone House, Drug Help, the Free People's Medical Clinic, Food Co-op, and other A-1 programs and organizations affiliated with the Tribal Council. A people united, working and moving together toward real self-determination -- that's what has made Ann Arbor the far out place it is today, and that's what has kept the SUN coming out every week since it's birth this May.

Before we get too carried away with our righteous successes, though, we absolutely have to point out our mistakes, so we can learn from them, and bring everything we 're doing up to a higher level so that it will be better and more useful to even more people. And the major problem that we have to face with the SUN is this-- the Ann Arbor SUN has not been able to become self-sufficient. We simply have not taken in enough money to pay back the costs of putting out the paper. Just so you can see what we're talking about here's a rough breakdown of weekly costs incurred by the SUN:

printing bill      $275.

subscription mailing    55.

art supplies    30.

transportation    30.

total $390.

Actually, that's pretty cheap -- probably the cheapest of just about any newspaper anywhere. The reason you don't see costs like "rent" or "salaries" on there is that the SUN is run on a totally communal basis along with every other activity that happens here at the Rainbow People's Party headquarters. It is because of that totally COMMUNEist nucleus, and also because of the fact that all artists, typists, layout workers, and writers from the community contribute their work for free that we're able to keep our operating expenses to an absolute minimum.

But even though SUN costs are low, it has not yet been possible for us to meet them. We have only started to organize distribution on a really thorough, efficient basis; so the largest portion of the money that comes in is from advertising. And since we haven't been able to contract any national advertising yet, the burden of supporting the SUN has fallen mostly to the local shop owners, who just haven't had the ability, or in some cases the interest to put enough money into the SUN every week to pay the printer. The result is that the printer, himself, takes the biggest financial strain-- at this point we're in debt to him for about $900.

Because of all this we are forced to announce that with this issue the SUN becomes a bi-weekly paper until September 10. At this point we need an extra week for every issue to get advertising together, to organize a better distribution system, and do the other work that we need to do (such as our campaigns to FREE JOHN NOW ! and BRING PUN HOME!) so that we can continue to survive and grow as a political party that serves the needs of the Rainbow People here in the Ann Arbor area. We will be coming out only every other week (our next issue will be out July 23) but we promise that we'll be ready to return to our weekly schedule in the fall and really do it right. We'll need everybody's help, but we're sure that the next two months will give us the time we need to get it together. This is the first and hopefully the last time we have to go bi-weekly -- we want to come out more often than once a week, but that's going to take quite a bit more organization on everybody's part before we can do it.

It would probably be worth a little bit of space here to talk about the Ann Arbor SUN and how it comes together. As it says on page 2 every week, the SUN is edited collectively by the Central Committee of the Party, which means that we give overall direction to the paper and have final say over what goes in or stays out. Most of the actual work of the C.C. is done by the Editorial Committee, which is made up of some C.C. members and several regular party members - at this point the Editorial Committee is Genie Plamondon, Frank Bach, Peggy Taube, Dave Fenton, Bill Goodson, John Collins, and Ann Hoover. After the first editorial meeting the Editorial Committee goes about seeing that copy for the next issue is written, by people in the community (some of which are contacted through the weekly community/staff meetings every Saturday afternoon at 3:00), by other Party members, and by members of the E.C. itself. The E.C. meets at various stages throughout the production of the paper to make sure things are going smoothly, to change plans that need to be changed, etc. An issue usually starts on Thursday night, a few hours after the last one has gone to press and before it has returned from the printer, with a short planning meeting of the Editorial Committee.

As written copy for the paper comes in it is typeset on our IBM Executive bookface typewriter (a second one, second hand, is on its way). Deadline for copy coming in to the paper is Tuesday at noon; late news, flashes, and ads can come in as late as Wednesday noon. Once the copy is typed up in columns on the typesetter it is waxed (with hot sticky wax), cut into neat little pieces, and pasted up on big sheets of heavy paper called flats. Once headlines, pictures, cartoons, ads, etc. are added to the flat it becomes a finished layout of what one page of the next issue will look like. Layout starts on Monday and continues through to an all-night session on Wednesday.

Early Thursday morning, as soon as layout is over, the finished flats go to the printer. Since most commercial printers refuse to print people's newspapers for their own weird political reasons, the paper is printed by Eichener Printing Co, in Chicago, a freek-run press that also prints the Chicago SEED, RISING UP ANGRY and many other Rainbow papers. A couple of staff workers drive the paper to Chicago; help Fred Eichener and his people nurse it off the presses; and, tired and weary, take a thousand copies to our mailing house in Chicago for subscriptions and drive the rest right back home as soon as it's done. It's ready for paper salesmen in Ann Arbor early Friday morning.

So that's how we do every issue. It takes a lot of energy, a lot of time, and a hunk of money to make it happen, and we need more help from everyone in the entire community to do the job. We're really serious when we say that the Ann Arbor SUN belongs to you--if you have anything to offer the SUN, whether it be a criticism, a story, a check, or some tokes -- whatever it is we need it from you, and more of it. The more that you give to the SUN, the more that it will give back to you, and more often, too.

RAINBOW POWER TO THE PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE !

Central Committee Rainbow People 's Party

PHOTO-DAVE FENTON

BILL GOODSON, GARY GRIMSHAW, ANNE LAVASSEUR, DAVE SINCLAIR, ANNE, RICHARD, ANN HOOVER, JOHN COLLINS, BILL,CHRIS SHONDELL, GARY