BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
With this issue, the Militant announces several staff changes.

Naomi Craine is the Militant's new editor. Craine, 25, joined the Militant staff in August 1992. Since then she has written extensively on U.S. politics, the labor movement, the Irish freedom struggle, and the Cuban revolution. Recent reports by Craine include coverage of the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination of ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan and the launching of the Socialist Workers Party presidential slate last month. During this period, Craine has traveled to Canada, Cuba, Ireland, Sweden, and many U.S. cities on reporting assignments.

Prior to joining the paper's staff, Craine was an active socialist in the trade union movement for several years. Before moving to New York in 1992 she was a member of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) and worked at Fieldcrest Cannon's Decorative Bedding mill in Eden, North Carolina. At that time, Craine was a member of the steering committee for the national work of the SWP's members in ACTWU.

During the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991, Craine announced her campaign to run for mayor of Greensboro, North Carolina, on the Socialist Workers ticket. Between August and November 1994 Craine took a leave from the Militant to campaign as the Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate in New York. She is currently a member of the SWP's National Trade Union Committee.

Steve Clark, the Militant's editor since January 1995, has been released from the paper's staff to concentrate on editing a new book Pathfinder Press will publish later this year. The book's working title is Capitalism's World Disorder: Working- Class Politics in the 21st Century. It will include a series of public talks and reports by SWP national secretary Jack Barnes from 1992 until today. These documents, which have been adopted by the party's National Committee and conventions, summarize the SWP's view of the evolution of world politics since the onset of the world capitalist depression in the aftermath of the Gulf War.

Clark, was the editorial director of Pathfinder Press for several years and is also the managing editor of the Marxist magazine New International. Over the next several months, he will be part of the editorial team that will produce the next issue of the magazine.

New staff writer
The Militant also has a new staff writer. Brian Taylor, 21, was an airplane cleaner for Northwest Airlines and a member of the International Association of Machinists in Washington, D.C., before joining the staff. Taylor was elected as a regular member of the Young Socialists National Committee at the organization's first national convention, held April 6-7 in Minneapolis. He is also a member of the SWP's National Committee.

In February, Taylor was part of an international team of Militant reporters who traveled to Cuba to cover the seventh Havana book fair and other political developments in the Caribbean nation. On April 20 Taylor will travel to Cuba again on a two-week editorial assignment as part of a delegation of trade unionists from the United States who will attend the 17th Congress of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC).

Prior to joining the socialist movement in 1991, Taylor was active in the struggle for Black freedom in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was a member of African Awareness, an antiracist high school group. He was also one of the leaders of Cincinnati Area Coalition Against U.S. Intervention in the Middle East, which organized protests against Washington's war on the Iraqi people.

Laura Garza, a member of the Militant staff since January 1995, will be on leave from her editorial responsibilities in early May to campaign full-time for U.S. vice president on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. She was chosen March 25 by the SWP National Committee to run on the socialist slate along with the party's presidential nominee, James Harris.

Paul Mailhot, who has been on the Militant staff since July 1994, was released from the paper to take full-time responsibilities in the SWP's national office. Mailhot also served an earlier stint on the paper from March 1992 to April 1993 and was the Militant's labor editor for a period.

To complete staff transitions and necessary changes in editorial and business responsibilities, the Militant began publishing 12-page issues in early April. It will resume its regular 16-page size by mid-May. This will allow the editorial staff to improve the daily and weekly routines necessary for producing a newsweekly with timely and perceptive coverage of working-class politics. These include following and filing articles from a wide array of publications from around the world, maintaining a library of hundreds of periodicals, and indexing every issue of the paper right after it goes to press.

During this period, the Militant will also switch to a more high-powered desktop publishing program, which the staff uses to output pages directly from the editorial department's computers onto film. The new software will allow for time savings and better organization of production.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home