A Printer’s Prerogative
Senior editor Allison Gamble tells us that three readers canceled their subscriptions over Honey. They complained that a magazine that crusades against censorship but lets itself be censored has lost its integrity.
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They were talking past each other. Former editor Jean Fulton recalls that soon after Johnson Press took over, the Examiner’s art director visited Pontiac. “He said it made him nervous. A lot of the workers had Christian paraphernalia on the walls of their work spaces.” It turned out that Pontiac lay in “Bible Belt country.”
Johnson had Guthrie over a barrel. Guthrie recalls Johnson telling him that unless he pulled the Benglis photo he would have three months–an impossibly short time–to find another printer. Guthrie wanted to run a statement explaining why the photo wasn’t there. Johnson didn’t like that idea either.
Far more often, Gene Johnson did not object when he might have. The Examiner even managed to put Andres Serrano’s notorious Piss Christ on the cover of one issue. (“He didn’t understand it,” says Guthrie.) Nor did Johnson hound the magazine over its chronically delinquent bills. But Guthrie, of course, wanted carte blanche. With Honey, his relationship with Johnson Press became intolerable.
Guthrie had been right in fearing the search for a new printer would not be a quick one. It lasted almost two years. The other printers in the Examiner’s price range turned out to be just as squeamish as Johnson Press.
“Their problem was finding a printer who would even print the disclaimer,” Grubb told us. “[But] that’s a statement of fact.”
