A weird article in the September issue of Conscious Choice raises questions about the direction being taken by one of Mayor Daley’s favorite magazines. “The 9/11 Credibility Gap” was a friendly interview by national editor Abigail Lewis with David Ray Griffin, professor of theology at the Claremont Colleges and author of The New Pearl Harbor, which suggests the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives planted in the towers rather than by the planes alone and that behind the catastrophe were neoconservatives seeking a pretext for war. Conscious Choice called Griffin’s book “perhaps the most detailed and compelling refutation of the ‘official’ 9/11 story,” thereby declaring itself a forum for credulous new age wingnuts.
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Shaw couldn’t have stopped the article even if he’d been there. Conscious Choice, founded in Chicago 18 years ago, is one of four similar magazines–the others are in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle–sold by Dragonfly Media of New York a little less than a year ago to Conscious Enlightenment LLC, and local content is now subordinate to national content dictated by headquarters in LA. Lewis’s interview with Griffin ran in all four magazines.
Even so, it was nice to hear Shaw disassociate himself. It would have been nicer if he hadn’t added that in his view Griffin was “one of the most respected theologians in America” and that the interview was “just kind of saying that we’re courageous enough to take on strong topics and give them a forum.” And it would have been even nicer yet if his anti-conspiracy-theory credentials gleamed.
Shaw says that on the matter of content “our editorial policy is a four-part foundation–equal parts environmentalism, healthy and natural living, progressive politics, and spirituality. And we try to keep a balance.” He concedes that “it was a little bit heavier on the spirituality stuff in the initial transition. They [Conscious Enlightenment] were making a statement–‘Here’s what we’re about.’ But I don’t think it’ll be nearly as saturated with that particular type of spirituality as it was the first few months.”
Still, Slama thinks the magazine is missing a bet. He says hardly anyone knows that Conscious Enlightenment’s parent company, IBS Capital Holdings, is a private equity firm that can claim Willie Gault as a principal. Gault was the starting wide receiver for the 1985 Super Bowl Bears. “Think of how many Bears fans have never heard of Conscious Choice,” he says. “If Willie Gault came out and said he was part of this thing it would be very interesting. Maybe they’d start eating organic hot dogs instead of the ordinary ones.”
Savage’s prescription recalled one of the most notorious hate crimes in recent U.S. history, the murder of a middle-aged black man, James Byrd Jr., in Jasper, Texas, in 1998.
