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Robert Christgau and Danyel Smith

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Guns and Music

By Danyel Smith
Posted Thursday, June 24, 1999, at 5:37 PM ET

Hey Bob: This has to be a quickie:

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Vibe's position on guns: we don't treat violence/murder as normal or small news. (See what I said about the Foxy situation.) Guns are glamorous though to people, and we struggle with photos that allude to or include guns. As editor-in-chief, I have a passion for issues I think I personally and the staff as a whole can do something about: for example, education and literacy. As I've said, I don't see what can be done about "guns." I do see that change can happen as far as education. Rolling Stone/Source ... who reads those mags? Not I. Though when I used to read RS (and write for them), I loved Greider and the stuff he wrote about gun control.

Bye, Bob. Yes, lunch! And re: this gun position thing ... I hope I answered. And re: harnessing the Vibe audience, if we do "harness" them (by accident), I hope it leads to the Vibe readership's having high expectations of journalists, and to their always remembering the power of music created by people of color for the world. We're the first national mag that has ever taken our kind of music seriously. It's what we do. And (I hate that I have to remind myself) it's important.