The Record brief history

A brief history of The Record

A history of a newspaper

by Herb Gunn

As the newspaper for the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, The Record began by an act of Convention in 1951. The first two editors —Jack Chapin (1951-62) and F. Plummer Whipple (1963-72)—served during the Bishop Richard Emrich era. When asked by the bishop to develop a newspaper, Chapin told the bishop he would undertake the assignment under the condition that Emrich understood that the bishop's picture would be in each issue no more than once: this was to be a newspaper for the person in the pew.

In 1972, Bishop Emrich asked Bill Logan to serve as editor. Harry Cook served as managing editor and became editor in 1976.

In the mid-1970s, Bishop Coleman McGehee and Cook launched the newspaper into a new era, creating "an independent editorial board to which the newspaper would be answerable," McGehee explained.

The tradition of an independent editorial voice was continued with four successive editors: John Laycock (1980-1981), Lois Leonard (1981-85), Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann (1986-91), and Herb Gunn (1991-present).

"It is worth the money to have a voice speak without the imprimatur of the bishop" said Wylie-Kellermann in 1994. "A newspaper that only presents what a given administration would like people to believe loses credibility quickly."

Prior to the 1995 division of the Diocese of Michigan, The Record Editorial Board engaged in a two-year study on the role of the newspaper in the diocese. The study led to three changes: 1) to restore the newspaper designation as the "official" diocesan newspaper; 2) to strongly urge every household distribution; and 3) to join a printing partnership with Episcopal Life.

The Editorial Board by-laws were revised in 1995 (and again in 1997) to reflect a closer working relationship with the bishop and the diocese while maintaining editorial oversight by the board. The Record also joined a printing partnership with Episcopal Life.

At the end of 1998, The Record initiated every household distribution of the newspaper, which allows that regular members of an Episcopal congregation will receive the monthly newspaper and Episcopal Life at no charge. In 2002, The Record opened The Record Reading Room and Gallery, a place for artistic expression of a spiritual life.

In 2007, The Record initiated The Record Weekly, an online, Monday morning newsbrief of upcoming events. In March 2008, The Record launched a new Web site design. The print monthly publication, the weekly e-mail and the now-current Web site mark a tripartite approach to communicating up-to-date news, feature stories, and information across the Diocese of Michigan and beyond.

Each editor brought a unique touch to the desk

by Herb Gunn

In 2001, The Record published a commemorative issue of the newspaper that was a long time coming: Fifty years to be exact.

Interviews were conducted with the five of the seven previous editors of the newspaper. Lois Leonard died in 1995 and F. Plummer Whipple was ill and subsequently died in 2002.

A great deal goes into a newspaper besides an editor’s vision or design, and each editor certainly provided the newspaper of his or her era with a certain flavor. But we each owe a primal allegiance to our first.

In 1951, a standard was set that has inspired editorial policies across the Episcopal Church and led the way for five decades of journalism history here in Michigan.

In many ministries, there are dreamers and there are doers. Jack Chapin was both for the enterprise of religious newspapers. When it came to church journalism, he believed strongly in the institution of the Episcopal Church, the ministries of the laity, and the independence of news presentation.

F. Plummer Whipple had a background in advertising and brought a strong element of public relations to his craft. Bill Logan was a trooper—still is—and a quick study: a priest with a respect for history who filled in when his bishop wanted to add newspaper work to an already plentiful plate of responsibilities. Harry Cook was issue-oriented and a cage-rattler who tried to liberate those on the inside and incarcerate those on the outside. (His assistant—now wife—Sue Chevalier served six months as an interim managing editor.)

John Laycock was a reconciler, an interim editor similar to his present vocation of interim pastor, who lent Chapinesque support for the Venture in Mission campaign not unlike the founder’s drumbeat for tithing and stewardship.

Lois Leonard, with a penchant for lay ministry, was the indefatigable, chain-smoking journalist, cut from the cloth of a city desk editor. She brought passion and opinion. Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann viewed the newspaper as a platform for prophetic Christianity—news with a moral to the story. Wylie-Kellermann went on the edit The Witness magazine, her last formal position before her death in 2005 after living seven years with brain cancer.

Herb Gunn, this present scribe, joined the rogues gallery in 1991. He heard a call to direct the pages of the newspaper toward congregations, their people and their ministries, and he oriented news coverage toward Michigan. A printing partnership with Episcopal Life that began in 1995 further freed The Record to chronicle the events near home. As president of the Episcopal Communicators (1998-2001) and a three-time deputy to General Convention, Gunn continues to call for creative church journalism and the editorial latitude to maintain a newspaper that takes its readers seriously. It remains an approach that owes much to Jack Chapin's original design.

What’s left after 50 years of The Record history is more than a comparison of editors, bishops and eras. It is a celebration of a bit of history—a history underscoring the importance of many fingerprints that are left on the pages of this journal by its editors, for all those prints mark the facets of sound religious journalism.

The past issues of The Record—some yellowing with age—are bound and available in The Record Reading Room, for anyone who loves church journalism and history.

Associate editor, art director and cartoonist for The Record during the 1980s, Norm Shadley published a book of cartoons that appeared in the pages of The Record. The title is Were Adam and Eve Episcopalian?

4800 Woodward Ave

Detroit, MI

48201-1399

313-833-4425

Fax 313-831-0259