The news arrived on a Saturday morning, July 2, as I walked sandaled and sleepy from my driveway to the front door, unfolding the New York Times. A banner headline shouted “O’Connor to retire.”
Suddenly I had a stomachache.
Two weeks earlier, we had shipped to the printer our July/August issue with a cover story on Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who many believed would retire when the Supreme Court adjourned at the end of June. The scenario we anticipated had Rehnquist, ’48, MA ’48, JD ’52, stepping down within days of our magazine arriving in readers’ mailboxes. Weren’t we clever? Such timeliness is rare for a bimonthly publication. But when Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, ’50, JD ’52, announced she was retiring, my first thought standing on my patio that morning was, “We picked the wrong one.”
In retrospect, I realize that was competitiveness talking, not logic. Sure, it would have been nice to deliver a timely story on Justice O’Connor at the moment she retired, and save our story on the chief justice for his eventual departure. But after some initial second-guessing and a few antacid tablets, I concluded that we made the right choice given the information we had available. Nobody outside Justice O’Connor’s closest circle knew she was going to retire; even her colleagues on the court were caught off guard. Moreover, our story dovetailed with events unfolding on the court regardless of which Stanford-degree-holding justice was involved. I was proud of our story; the timing didn’t change that.
The second thought that occurred to me that morning was: what should we do about Justice O’Connor? She deserved a cover story, too, but when? We had missed the window for being truly current. Would readers expect a story as quickly as we could deliver it or was it more important to give them something they hadn’t read elsewhere? Complicating our decision was the first of a two-part series on global warming planned for September/October—should we pull it to run a piece on Justice O’Connor?
As you’ll see, we decided to wait. We are assembling a package of stories we hope will reveal new insights about the first woman on the Supreme Court, whose legal legacy already has been so well documented and analyzed. You’ll see those articles in an upcoming issue.
Dealing with timeliness, or the lack thereof, is one of the ongoing challenges of a bimonthly. With deadlines eight weeks apart, we can’t do a good job of covering “news.” This presents a dilemma when Supreme Court justices retire (or don’t), and any other situation in which events are still unfolding. We offer context and analysis rather than currency. But occasionally, as in the Rehnquist case, we strive for both.
Meanwhile, Joan Hamilton’s global warming story kicks off our two-parter on an issue that affects every person (and animal) every day. You can’t get timelier than that.
