Tremor Strikes Weekly

Death Toll Rises

YOU'LL SEE NAME changes and different titles on the masthead for this week's edition of the Tucson Weekly.

James Reel, a frequent contributor to our pages, is our new editor. Jim Nintzel, eager to return to a writing position, finally gets to make the move to senior writer.

For our readers, this means a powerful combination of talent and Tucson roots. It couldn't happen at a better time.

Nintzel's grasp of state and local politics will guide you through the fall elections. With his political sources and interviewing skills, he'll cut through the bull of politics. He demonstrated that just recently in his insightful coverage of the Amphitheater recall elections.

Reel is another success story. He is the perfect combination of a hard news journalist who also is highly regarded as an arts critic. Read one of his reviews of a classical music performance and you'll see what I mean.

We won't hold it against him that he worked for 10 years at the Arizona Daily Star. Our staff of amateur surgeons removed the microchip that the Star had implanted in his neck.

He was a staff writer there from 1988 to 1995 and was assistant features editor from 1995 to early 1999. He built a reputation as an editor who could help reporters turn good copy into great copy. "His ideas are completely off the wall, but he's also a stickler for detail and accuracy," one of the Star staffers told me.

So please enjoy reading the Tucson Weekly in the weeks and months ahead as Reel and his staff pursue our mission: "UNcover news, challenge conventional thinking, have fun, and do it in that order."

--Thomas P. Lee, Publisher