Every media platform has its struggles with accuracy, production sequences, and presentation. It’s more than a little ironic that our most recent internal struggle came over a cover story about the U.S. Civil War, and with an article titled “Going Wrong With Confidence” (July 21, 2011).
As we worked with the talented author who prepared the original article, a significantly revised draft emerged that incorporated wider historical perspectives and adjusted several passages in the first draft that could have been misunderstood or were unclear. The author completely endorsed changes proposed by our editorial staff, and a revised version was sent forward.
Somehow, however, that corrected draft got lost in the Wilderness or stalemated at the First Battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861), whose 150th anniversary it was timed to coincide with. The early, uncorrected draft inadvertently moved forward into print production, and entered the mailstream (or is that maelstrom?) of reader response.
Key to the corrected draft, now appearing as intended on the Adventist Review Web site (“Going Wrong With Confidence,” August 11, 2011, www.old1.adventistreview.org/issue.php?issue=2011-1520&page=14), is the description of the honored efforts of prewar abolitionists to emancipate African-American slaves. As readers of the Adventist Review know (see my cover story, “Writing About Wrongs,” www.adventist review.org/2002-1509/story1.html), early Seventh-day Adventists were uniformly passionate about the eradication of slavery and the emancipation of the more than 3 million African-Americans then held in involuntary servitude. That passion for the biblical values of justice and equality was, is, and will remain the North Star of this now 162-year-old publication.
We apologize for the incorrect version of the cover story appearing in the July 21, 2011, print edition, and point you to the Adventist Review Web site (old1.adventistreview.org) to read and enjoy the article we intended.
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Bill Knott is editor of the Adventist Review. This article was published August 18, 2011
