Thank you, and may you all have peace!
The WTS has a writing comittee that spews out this tripe...maybe 200+ people that do nothing but churn out page after page of garbage...everything is reviewed by the GB to make sure it meets JW standards then goes to print...mostly they cull over 129 years of past publications to recycle material...
Actually, this isn't quite true. According to Carey Barber (who I spoke with on this very matter in 1996), "The GB hasn't had anything to do with the WT and AW since 1972, when we turned it over the Writing Department. It's all right there in the video." When we asked, "Which video?" and he said it was the very first one they published, which is WHY they published it. When we asked why it was turned over in 1972, he said it was in anticipation of 1975 - they thought they were going to meet the Lord and so handed everything over to the "Joshua class." He said THAT was in a WT (which it was, but I can't remember which publication).
As soon as we could, the "sister" I was with and I took a look at the video, and... yep... it's all right there. Per the video, there is [was] a room at Bethel [Paterson, by the time I spoke with Barber - in fact, most of Bethel appeared empty, as there was a full on relocation taking place back then], full of filing cabinets... which were full of "research" going back to at least Rutherford. Certain members of the "Writing Department" would take information from the file, review it for current relevance, and turn it into a new article (which is why the stuff sounds the same, for the most part - it's canned and so merely recycled). After the "brother" assigned to the article completes it, it is reviewed by the "Writing Committee" (which, at that time, included NO "anointed" - and still may as, per Barber, that "wasn't considered necessary" - which blew me away, at the time - I'm getting my "food" from NON-anointed folk? What the...??!!) Anyway, if you have a copy of the video (if you haven't thrown it out by now, why not?), review it: it does tell how the WT and AW are written. Be careful, though - the whole part is about 15-20 seconds long,so if you blink (or go to the fridge for a Coke)... you might miss it. But... it is there... and one day they'll just say (as Barber did and they often do), "We TOLD you how it was done; we have nothing to hide." I bid you all peace. A slave of Christ, SA