LOCALITIS is a disease familiar to local newspapers. In its most harmless form it is home-town boosterism, an understandable concern with the near and familiar. "A dog fight in a Denver street is more important than a war in Europe," was the way Denver's crusty old Editor Fred G. Bonfils put it.

We try to avoid it. We seek to judge an artist in London, Ont., by as severe a standard as one in London, England; and if we are inescapably American, we try not to let any regionalism show. But for the past eleven weeks the biggest story in the biggest city in the U.S.--where we publish--has been the shutdown of New York's seven daily newspapers. This week that strike becomes the subject of TIME's cover story, and not for reasons of localitis. Everybody is talking about it, even Moscow Radio.

Naturally, we are involved. New York's news-starved readers have been buying TIME on the newsstands at the rate of 50,000 a week more than usual, and we are pleased that thousands have become regular subscribers as a result. We sell more ads too: the Feb. 15 issue of the Metropolitan regional edition of TIME, which goes to 300,000 subscribers in the New York area, was the thickest issue in TIME's history. But though grateful for windfalls, we regret the shutdown of the papers and take no pleasure in newsmen out of jobs, readers without primary sources of information that neither radio nor television nor news magazines can supply, and businesses suffering from being unable to reach their customers in their normal way. The dismaying effect of the strike is symbolized by the monkey wrench on the cover.

HAVING no "front page" for all the important stories, or any back pages in which to tuck away inconsequential news, we feel that all stories--whether about new books or old music--must compete for their share of our space, and jealous editors have a way of contending that the news of their field, whether science or Latin America or art, matters most.

Still, amid so many, we single out these stories in this week's issue to recommend:

Nigeria--Nation on Trial describes the political confusion that now besets the world's most populous black state, three years after it bloodlessly won its independence.

Venezuela--Washington's Welcome to a Friend tells why President Betancourt is John F. Kennedy's favorite Latin American.

What Relief?, in THE NATION section, ruefully discusses how any dollars a taxpayer may save from a Kennedy tax cut will merely go back, in most cases, to the tax-hungry states.

And in ART there are two contrasting stories. Monsieur Georges tells of Wildenstein, the art dealer, who regards as more precious than anything he buys and sells the illuminated miniatures of the Renaissance that he collects. Two pages of color provide a sampling. The Baroness is about Hilla Rebay, a 72-year-old grande dame who until this year had never sold a painting, but has been collecting substantial tax benefits from the high price tags ($169,000) put on eight of her paintings when she gave them to schools.

MANY people long remember a particular story in TIME, but few can claim to have had their lives changed by what they read. One who can is the Rev. Arthur Carl Kreinheder, the first and only Lutheran monk in U.S. history, whose changed life dates from a story in TIME in August 1948. See The Lonely Lutheran Monk in RELIGION.

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