To catch you up to date on the story thus far: Sprouts pulled our September issue. I explained why I thought they were missing our point. Lisa McMillen has this to say about that:
You are still making excuses for your tasteless and hateful cover by now claiming that it is “clearly ironic” and a “paean,” which is defined as “a written, spoken, or musical expression of enthusiastic praise or rapturous joy.”
Are you kidding? The only thing that is clear here is that you lack the integrity to create a cover that honestly represents your article for fear that it might not sell as many magazines. Your idea of “enthusiastic praise” is seriously distorted — you have carelessly and for your own selfish profit reasons, thrown fuel on an already smoldering fire and now refuse to take any responsibility for your actions. You are missing the point when you continue to insist that people should read the article and not just look at the cover. You created that problem by making the cover so repulsive that most people outside of Southlake would not want to spend $5 to read about why they actually, and in your words, ironically, should NOT hate Southlake. The only “rapturous joy” here is coming from your bottom-line for your increase in sales at the expense of mainly children.
An apology is owed to the students of Southlake and I hope that your conscious will eventually give you the courage to do so.
Let’s see here. Yes, we cop guilty to trying to sell magazines. It’s weird that way. Bakers try to sell bread, milliners try to sell hats, editors try to sell magazines. But I don’t see how we’re doing it at the “expense” of the Southlake kids when we call them smart, strong, and good-looking. Maybe tomorrow’s Star-Telegram story about the hubbub will explain all this to me. A reporter talked to Paul today.
