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The Inside Dope

The Inside Dope image The Inside Dope image
Parent Issue
Day
31
Month
December
Year
1975
OCR Text

 

 

THE INSIDE DOPE                                                                          by Jeffy the Dopester

A New Year's Message from the SUN Staff

    With this years end issue of the SUN, folks may be noticing some changes in the paper. Obviously, there's our shiny new logo perched atop page one, adorned by the Detroit skyline.  And you might notice that we're doubling our efforts to pack in as much information per column inch as we possibly can, bringing you more stories about more goings-on than ever before.

    So we've decided this would be good time to pause from our usual banter in this space and have a straight-up rap with you, dear readers, concerning what we've been trying to accomplish over the past several months and where we would like to go from here.

   First of all, you've no doubt noticed by now that the antique style to which you may have become endeared in this corner of the paper has given way to a more contemporary idiom. Well, those of you who are old enough to remember Iffy's tenure at the Free Press will recognize our previous efforts as an attempt to pay homage to journalist tradition and to serve as a link between the original sharp-eared old sidewinder and our own modernized version worldly-wise street hipster. We kept getting the urge, though, to break into a more contemporary vernacular, but were held back by the need to sound like a character from the '40's. Realizing that nothing stands still, and that Iffy is, in fact,  getting younger all the time, we've decided to lake a leap into the present and allow the ol' Dopester, in the future, to utilized the full range of his constantly-growing vocabulary.

   About our new logo, which we owe to the conception of our Kulchur Editor, John Sinclair, and the talented pen of our staff cartoonist, Gary Kell. A lot of people despite all our efforts to demonstrate ours overwhelming interest in present-day happenings right here in Detroit, where our editorial office has been located for the past three months, still seem to think of us as "the Ann Arbor SUN." Not that we have anything against Ann Arbor, which has supported out humble efforts for so many years, and which we continue to serve editorially and circulation-wise, as much as is within our power, but to speak frankly, there came a time when in order to keep growing and expanding our operations, we had to widen our horizons.

   And it didn't take very long to see that right under our noses was Detroit and its metropolitan area, comprising some 4.5 million people living in an area where all the important issues in the country today we're being played out. Then we realized that these people had no Communications medium offering them the kind of in-depth news analysis, cultural coverage, and just plain good reading which we considered our forte. We looked at the possibilities for change in Detroit, with its first black city administration, led by a mayor whose political background seemed to have something in common with our own viewpoint. Certainly, we thought about the expanded economic base that an area of such size and population could provide us with, if we could offer it a valuable service.

   So, while maintaining our offices in Ann Arbor, we opened up shop here this fall. We raised enough capital investment to propel our initial effort to establish ourselves as a legitimate media force in Detroit. We gradually transferred our production department here, began concentrating on issues of immediate significance to Detroiters, and secured a major distributor to help us get the word out. We added to our staff, and many of

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our Ann Arbor-based people endured the problems of frequent commuting. We began to reclaim the roots we had put down in Detroit from 1967 on, when the first issue of the SUN (then the Warren-Forest SUN) hit the streets, and to extend those roots into the very nerve centers of the exciting political, cultural, and social activity that make today's Detroit such an interesting place to be.    Editorially, we have been quite limited by the need to print no more pages than our advertising revenue could support initially. We saw our main task as letting you know who we were and where we were coming from, and so we embarked on a series of issues which examined in depth, one by one, some of the crucial areas of interest to Motor City residents-including regional government, conflict between the city and the suburbs, the question of police involvement in the heroin trade, the character of the city's first black administration, and the general urban crisis. Now, as we anticipate having more room to maneuver, we will be shifting away from this quasi-magazine format to what we intend to be more like the tabloid newspaper we are best suited to be-bringing you more pieces each issue, on a wider variety of topics, while maintaining our in-depth approach and our unique perspective.

   To top things off, we've moved into a brand new office in the downtown Leland House, where we have room to spread out and grow. To give us time to settle into our new home, we'll be taking an extra week between this issue and the next-which will be out January I5th.

   We're excited about these changes, and we hope you will be. too. We have a lot of goodies coming up tor you in the coming year, and we're looking forward to making it a real good time tor all concerned.

   So, until next time, on behalf of Iffy the Dopester, this is the SUN staff signing off and saying,"Have a high and happy New Year- and let the SUN keep you warm this winter!"

Iffy the Dopester is vacationing in Jamaica.

The SUN has an opening for ambitious, creative salesperson to work ads in the Detroit Metro area on a high commission basis. Great chance to carve out sales area at initial growth stage. Submit resume to Ad Manager, Box 7217 Detroit 48202