Image And Idea

Scott Whitney

I love magazines. Yet there is a time to let go, which I'm doing after almost two years of editing Pacific Magazine. I have taken a very different kind of job in the U.S. state of Washington and will be moving to the U.S. northwest coast-still the Pacific, at least, but it's a mainland place, quite different from living on islands, which I've done for the past 20-something years.

I love magazines and I love what we have been able to accomplish with Pacific Magazine. I use first person plural, not out of some routine gesture of humility, but rather because the transformation of this monthly is as much due to the talents of art director Charlie Pedrina, the entrepreneurial drive and technical knowledge of publisher Floyd Takeuchi, and the long memory and extensive connections of contributing editor Giff Johnson.

Giff and Floyd will be at the helm for the next few months while my replacement is recruited.

Part of any magazine is what journalism people refer to as its "voice." That voice comes partly from the quality of the writers contributing and how the editor shapes their copy, but it also comes from editors themselves in the stories they choose to run and, equally, in the pieces they decide to ignore. I have ignored some boring stories and I have ignored some juicy ones-mainly because their facts were shaky or because they would have hurt individuals who didn't deserve to be hurt.

The other element of a magazine's voice is right here on this page, that is, the opinions of the editor-sometimes called "analysis" when there is a need to be self important. A colleague told me her grandparents liked my columns because they were liberal. "They're very liberal!" she added, referring to her grandparents-and I could not tell if she thought this was a good thing.

Liberal, conservative or moderate, one of the greatest privileges of any editor is to have his or her voice heard and to have a say about what is happening and what it all means. It's something few citizens get a chance at.

As editor, and as a citizen of Oceania, I have tried to maintain a voice that was fair, that was accurate and that gave readers the opportunity to hear a variety other voices-not just me, not just official (and reliably boring) government pronouncements, not just rewritten corporate press releases. So Pacific Magazine's voice includes the opinions of our rotating columnists, the letters from readers and the dedicated reporting of our correspondents around the region.

I must say too that there is a visual kind of voice, or "look" to any magazine and that's where we've made the greatest improvement these last two years. That look comes from the quality of the photos plus the layout and design skills of the art director. Our look has improved as much, if not more, than our voice. Talented photojournalists sending in images that "pop," to use the current lingo, is something a news magazine cannot do without.

Examples in this issue are Scott Radway's photo in our Pacific Notes section of a funeral in Palau, New Zealand photojournalist Jocelyn Carlin's images of the Kiwi-Mono Islander interactions in the Solomons and the sushi chef image in our fisheries special section from Tokyo-based photographer Greg McCartney.

I love magazines of all kinds-shallow, glitzy ones; big, serious, influential ones; gossipy, celebrity-ridden ones. I'm infatuated with travel and food and wine magazines and I can't get enough of the more literate ones, like Atlantic or the New Yorker in the U.S., which publish great fiction and non-fiction alike. I've written for just about every kind of magazine, so I know a good one when I see it. And I must say that, however small it might be, Pacific Magazine is turning into a really good magazine.

Let me send into the future my best wishes for whoever the new editor will be and express my deep appreciation for my colleagues in this business of image and idea-Floyd Takeuchi, Giff Johnson, Charlie Pedrina and Florence Betham-all great talents. I will miss them all. And I will miss our readers, who have cajoled, corrected and encouraged our team over the last two, exciting years. Aloha kakou!