The Words of the Johnson Family
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The Words of the Johnson Family |
In January, 1982 Father visited Washington and decided to purchase the 100,000 square foot Parson's Paper Company building to house The Washington Times newspaper plant. Twenty months and a massive $18 million renovation project later, a pedestrian paper company warehouse stood transformed into the most elegant, state-of-the-art newspaper facility in the United States. To commemorate the completion of the building, Father and Mother travelled to Washington, D.C. for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the afternoon of September 24, and were guests of honor at a festive banquet in The Washington Times Auditorium that night.
Following the ribbon-cutting, Father led an 11/2-hour private tour of the entire newspaper facility, during which he saw the completed plant for the first time. What had formerly been 90,000 square feet of warehouse area was now a fully modern press room with two lines of eight-unit presses -- an American-made Goss Urbanite and a German-designated M.A.N. Roland press. Next to the press room was the mail room, where the nightly newspaper run passes through the inserter, and is automatically bundled, wrapped and tied and sent down a conveyor belt to vehicles waiting in the loading dock. The newsroom with its 40-foot high ceiling, fully computerized text# processing computer system for reporters and editors, travertine marble walls and an expansive view out the world's largest picture window into a national park eight feet away -- the National Arboretum -- in no way resembled its dusty and bleak former self. On the ground floor the sleek computer room, brain center of the entire editorial and business operation; the impressive, airy employee dining hall; the telecommunications nerve center -- The Washington Times was 30 years, but light years' distance from a hillside in Pusan, South Korea teeming with refugees from the Communist North, and a lone man in a mud and cardboard hut, determined to help liberate his fellowman from suffering.
One distinguished member of the tour, who had seen the building before the renovation, marveled at the change, and said, "Money alone could not have done this. This paper must stand unique, in the vision propelling it forward, and the dedication of the staff."
In May 1982, the entire editorial and operational staff of the paper was crammed into the one floor of office space in the original building. It was like taking the crew of a battleship and squeezing them into a submarine. But now, as Father toured, he saw an area that had been stripped down to the steel support beams, had a third floor added, and then built up with tasteful attention into an area housing the advertising sales department, public relations, promotion, marketing, executive and corporate offices.
The completion of the main building (there are two others in The Times complex) provides the physical expression of the vision Father outlined in New York City, on January 1, and February 2, 1982, when he explained to church elders and members why he was initiating The Washington Times project. The meaning of September 24 was thus far more the mere completion of a construction project.
On January 1, 1982 Father announced the newspaper project to church members assembled at 11:00 p.m. in the World Mission Center. And on February 2 he told another group in the same ballroom, why he felt compelled to start The Washington Times.
"You may wonder why, as religious people, we are making this commitment to establish a daily conservative newspaper in Washington, D.C." He said it was a sacrifice of our paramount evangelical work, but that he had waited, expecting some wealthy American conservative leader, or group, to fill the void left by the demise of The Washington Star.
"But no one came forward," he said. "The United States must have a conservative voice in the nation's capital, for this democracy to survive. Therefore we must make the sacrifice."
He said that a major element in America has turned away from the liberal trends of the post-World War II era, that conservatism and traditional, God-centered values are emerging, but the liberal-leftist media dominates people's consciousness and unduly influences public policy debates in a direction destructive of the fundamental values supporting western civilization.
The Washington Times was established on the foundation of the five-year-old News World, in New York City. The Washington Times is a division of News World Communications, Inc., a New York State-based international communications company. Following the tradition of western journalism, Father ensured that The Washington Times would have a strong and credible editorial voice by establishing the newspaper independent of the Unification Church, and by instructing the Chairman and President of News World Communications, Inc., Mr. Bo Hi Pak, to find an outstanding conservative journalist whom he could trust with the total editorial and operational leadership of the paper.
James R. Whelan, Editor and Publisher of The Washington Times, left his position as Vice President and Editor of the Sacramento Union to confront the challenge of launching a fully-competitive newspaper in the toughest news city in the world, Washington, D.C. And he had 77 days in which to do it in, from March 1 to May 17, 1982.