Journalism and the First Amendment of Northeast Georgia6A

By Pat Kerley

Newspapers are serious business. It’s their purpose to report the important

news and events that affect our lives. Even in an era when so much of our information is gleaned from television and over the Internet, we still reach for the newspaper for fuller, in-depth coverage of major events.

Elections, tragedies, scan-dals…all serious stuff. And the people who put these newspapers together are hardworking, seri-ous people -- journalists who care deeply about accuracy and who are keenly aware of their respon-sibility.

It’s true, too, that newspapers are a mirror of life. Along with world and national news, they tell the story of local politics, births, deaths, marriages, schools and all the areas that mark the opera-tion of a community. Newspapers are, at their core, a document of life. And if they are to fully re-fl ect that life, they have no choice but to contain some things that are not serious. Things that are, well, funny. Because life is funny. People are funny.

I remember laughing a lot dur-ing my years as an editor at The Times of Gainesville. Sometimes the news itself was funny, espe-cially if you consider extraordi-nary vegetables news, which we did if they were funny enough. Who wouldn’t enjoy seeing a picture of a couple on a porch swing with their hands lovingly

touching the enormous squash sitting between them? Or read-ing about a hen that went into the yard every day and stretched out on a rock so the sun would bake down on her stomach. (Or whatever you’d call the underside of a stretched-out chicken.)

Sometimes the laughter was tinged with pain when it was caused by a typo or a composing room error. When I was at The Times stories were printed out in long strips, cut into pieces and placed on the pages with sticky wax. We tried to be especially careful to make sure nothing went awry and everything got waxed down in the proper place. Several people checked each “break,” which was supposed to assure accuracy but which actually helped spread the blame in case of a mistake. That’s why no one ever pled guilty to being responsible for the story of the mature bride who wore a fl oor-length gown and decorated the chapel with an eight-branched candelabra. But you have to admit that it was funny when the story ran in the paper revealing that she was radiant in a “fl oor-length bra.”

Some newspaper humor is ful-ly intentional, meant to brighten the pages otherwise fi lled with serious business. One of my jobs during my years at The Times was to be funny in print -- and in public -- once a week. My essays, each just a few hundred words long, were scheduled to appear in the Family News section of

the Sunday edition. Sound easy? Well, not so very. Some weeks nothing funny happened, but I always managed to come up with something without ever having to create it entirely. (Otherwise called lying.)

Most weeks, however, I had more than enough material to come up with something funny. I had a family, I had children, I had pets, I had a car and appliances. How much more than that does a writer need? How about a class reunion where you try to stuff your post-partum body into an old Merry Widow waist cincher? How about a cat so stupid that she can’t tell the difference between her litter box and the air-return grid? How about Halloween, when you run out of candy and fresh fruit and start slipping Frosted Mini-Wheats into the Trick or Treat bags?

Those weeks were the easy ones. The problem for me, or any humor columnist, is to be funny consistently. I never had a chance to talk with the best of the best, the late Erma Bombeck and Lew-is Grizzard, but they somehow kept up the quality of their work for years on end. They rarely missed, delivering columns that were tight, well-written and, of course, funny.

I’d rewrite or heavily edit most of my columns if given the chance. Only a few still please me. The ones I liked most are the ones that would make me laugh or cry while I was typing them, and they tend to be the ones that

are nostalgic or that mark one of life’s precious moments. If I had to choose one favorite, it would be about the fi rst year we all opened gifts on Christmas Eve like grown-ups, with no Santa surprises saved for Christmas morning. I still cry when I read it.

My favorites aren’t usually the ones that readers seem to have enjoyed the most. I never dreamed I’d get such a response to 300 words about cleaning out my refrigerator. And buying a bathing suit turned out to be a trauma that most grown women share, like childbirth and labor.

Apparently, stories about childhood vacations in seedy motels with round TV screens touched a familiar chord. And lots of folks identifi ed with grow-ing sick of summer’s bounty when you’ve snapped beans and peeled peaches until you’re ready to slip them in a plain brown wrapper and hide them in the garbage can under the water-melon rind.

When you write about person-al things, I guess it’s inevitable that at some point you will offend someone. I did it by writing (for reasons I can’t imagine now) about “cotton-crotch pantyhose.” Apparently that phrase was tacky enough to cause a canceled subscription. Perhaps I should have written “cotton-crotch stockings.” Think that would have helped? Maybe not.

It was a relief when I wrote my last column. I wasn’t sure

there were any more of them left in me. But that was a long time ago, when I was still young. Who knew how funny it is to be old. When you’re old you know funny things that young people can’t even imagine. They don’t have a clue that the soothing sound of raindrops falling in the middle of the night work as well as a pre-scription diuretic. They’ve never known anyone who tried to snag a new husband by fi guring out when he went to the pharmacy to get his meds refi lled. They don’t know that a coupon for a free oil-change and a Chick-fi l-A combo can make for a happy birthday.

I’ve heard people say that printed newspapers are doomed. I hope they are wrong. There’s a satisfaction in pulling the paper out of its box, unfolding it, and shaking out the pages, that nothing else quite delivers. You can print out recipes and obits and things that make you laugh, but it’s not the same as clipping them from a newspaper page. Something about the process causes you to remember the things you’ve read. Even though it’s been a couple of decades since my last column appeared, I’m no longer surprised when people say to me, “I read your piece every Sunday.”

It’s certainly better than, “I like your columns. Have you ever thought about being a writer?” That’s not funny.

Pat Kerley for many years wrote a humor column for The Times of Gainesville.

Humor in newspapers: Some of it is fully intentional

By Phil Hudgins

The city council in my hometown lifted its ban on fortunetelling several years ago. Everybody saw it

coming. The city no doubt foresaw a law-suit if the ban continued. After all, the state and courts have said psychic trades are legitimate. So the fortunetellers won, palms down.

Thankfully or unfortunately, depend-ing on your degree of gullibility, fortune-tellers again will join the fi ght for the al-mighty dollar sought by the state lottery, telemarketers and pyramid pushers.

I think I’ll take my chances and con-tinue my own personal ban. It’s easier and cheaper to fl ip a coin.

Fortune tellers always make good newspaper stories.

About 25 years ago, I interviewed a woman who claimed she could foresee the future and read my mind, which should have been easy reading.

Describe my family, I said. She said I have a wife and two sons. Actually, I have a wife and two daughters. Well, she said, you’re going to have a son. Nope. But I do have a grandson now. If we were playing horsehoes, she’d score a latent leaner.

Can you describe my living room? I asked. She gave it a whirl. She said it featured windows – and it did – but she missed the Early Holiday Inn décor alto-gether.

No doubt her abilities to tell the future, if they existed at all, were in the past.

Now let’s look at water dowsers. Do you believe their claims?

I once interviewed a gentleman named Charlie Hammonds Patton, who said he

could fi nd underground water by holding a forked stick in both hands and walking around. When the tip of the stick pulled itself downward, he had found the water source.

“It’ll work if you have enough electric-ity in you,” he said.

A few years later, this nice man and his mysterious trade were the subjects of a class paper I wrote while on a univer-sity fellowship Up North. I read a lot from researchers into water dowsing. One of them said that believing in water dows-ing “necessitates a complete disregard of the basic principles of hydraulics, hydrol-ogy, meteorology, physics, thermodynam-ics and geology, and even the fundamen-tal laws of gravitation.”

Mr. Patton would have said he didn’t know about all that stuff. All he knew was he could fi nd underground water with a forked stick.

You know, people like to believe things work rather than not work. It’s all in the ritual. Think of the “ritual” piped out on television: If a woman buys a certain face cream, she’ll be more beautiful. If a man drives a certain car, he’ll have to fi ght off the pretty women. If you go to Donald Trump’s seminar, you’ll get rich.

People are looking for the quick fi x: a short answer from a fortuneteller, a win-ning lottery ticket, someone to tell them what to do to make their lives better.

Well, good luck on your next visit to Sister Sarah the Psychic. For a price, she’ll tell you what’ll happen. But don’t worry: It’s legit. The state says so.

Phil Hudgins, a volunteer at the North-east Georgia History Center, is senior edi-tor of Community Newspapers Inc.

The late Charlie Hammonds Patton of Banks County said he could fi nd underground water with a forked stick.

Fortunetellers make good stories, but usually not good predictions

He must be the know-all of it all, the Alpha and Omega, the sum and substance of those things that are, have been and are to be.

By Johnny Vardeman

One of the many experts that enjoyed critiquing newspa-pers used to say there wasn’t

enough humor in them.That despite the fact that news-

papers devote a page or more to the funnies. And some material in newspapers might inspire a laugh even if that wasn’t the intention.

Newspapers of old didn’t seem to take themselves so seriously, and you could fi nd considerable humor in their columns. Those were the “anything-goes” days when libel laws were loose or editors didn’t pay them much attention.

Many of today’s columnists pro-vide a bit of wit now and then. But editors way back then were fond of just telling jokes. Like this one in the Walton Tribune decades ago:

A stranger entered the local church and sat on the back pew. As the sermon droned on, he asked an elderly gentleman next to him, “How long has he been preaching?”

“Thirty or 40 years, I think,” came the reply.

“I’ll stay then,” the visitor re-plied. “He must be nearly done.”

Another editor told the story of a man who shot and killed his wife, then killed himself after they argued over who should read the lo-cal paper fi rst. The editor suggested a law be passed requiring the head of every family subscribe for two

papers. And, the editor added, they should be paid for in advance.

Austin Dean, who once published the Gainesville Eagle, made a name for himself in Georgia journalism and in some national circles. He wryly expressed the frustration of editors in a column back in 1931, some of which is applicable today:

Readers expect the editor to be a combination of sheriff and minister. His it is to ferret out crime, see the criminal captured, convicted and behind the bars. Then his it is to write evangelical editorials, which the prisoner is to read and become reformed.

Readers expect the editor to play both sides against the middle, to be right always and to fail never in championing every cause, just because some want it. In politics, the editor is supposed to be infallible. In advocating principles, he is expected to be both sage and teacher, having the wisdom of Solomon, the shrewd-ness of Disraeli and the tutoring ability of Socrates.

Let him fall short in any of these, and the readers would affl ict him, like Solomon with multitudinous wives, like Disraeli with overcoming the antipathy of his race, and, like Socrates, condemn him to quaff the fatal hyslop.

If an editor supports an issue objectionable to a certain group, they come in and cancel their sub-scriptions. If he does not, then those favoring it will stop the paper. If he is a Democrat, Republicans spurn him, and vice versa. If he is a church-goer, a civic leader and a booster, he is hied as a Babbitt; if he is not, he is

called an atheist, a mossback and a chronic cynic.

He must practice what he preaches or face the challenge of hypocrisy. No one believes him human like others, his little drink being more of a stimulant than an advocacy of anti-Volsteadism; maybe a means of forgetting the demands made upon him.

He must be more charitable than a Community Chest. His pages must be open to this, that and the other free publicity, regardless of the cost to him. He must praise the most dastardly ne’er-do-well when he succumbs, he must actually paint the lily and perfume the rose, besides beautifying trash and embellishing nothingness.

He must give sound business advice and write poetry; he must be both practical and artistic, aesthetic and commercial. He should be able to run a bank, try a case, preach a sermon, dig a ditch and indite a lyric. His knowledge of prize-fi ghting should not surpass his familiarity with dactylic and hexameters; he should be as good a surgeon as a woodsman. What he doesn’t know shouldn’t be known, and if known not published.

He must be the know-all of it all, the Alpha and Omega, the sum and substance of those things that are, have been and are to be.

It’s impossible, but who wouldn’t be an editor?

It’s the only life.Johnny Vardeman is a retired edi-

tor of The Times of Gainesville. He writes a weekly column on history for the newspaper.

Life and humor of oldtime editors

GRASS IS GREENER OVER THE (LOCAL) SEPTIC TANK

It’s a fact most local people read local newspapers to get local news. They may expect state, national and international news from the dailies, but most subscribe to The Times in Gainesville and The Times in Ellijay to fi nd out what’s going on in their com-munities. The same can be said for columns. If local columnists constantly delve into the war in Afghanistan or the mess in Wash-ington, readers likely will tire very easily. They can get that stuff from Charles Krauthammer and E.J. Dionne. For those who have a knack for writing humor – especially humor the average people can relate to – then humor normally is defi nitely better than the scoop on the latest bioenergy research in Washington. Remem-ber that, please, the next time you pick up a newspaper and read a local columnist: If he or she is writing about something local, something personal, something funny, even something sad, there’s a reason for that. Local news and opinions are local newspapers’ bread and butter.

History Center special section 2012.indd 11 8/30/12 10:17 PM

By Michael Leonard The Clayton Tribune

traces its history to 1897, when John Reynolds of De-morest arrived in town with a linotype on the back of a cart to begin a local news-paper.

Cargo vehicles still loom largely in the operations of The Tribune, with the news-paper’s current cart – a Ford van – hauling printed copies each week from the press plant in Cornelia to post offices, racks and news dealers across Rabun Coun-ty.

Reynolds could probably relate to that function, but many other parts of today’s Clayton Tribune would seem foreign to him.

The painstaking, hand-set type operation of Reyn-olds’ time has given way to several generations of im-provements, making today’s production vastly different.

Reynolds, who published The Tribune until 1913, has been succeeded numerous times, also.

Reynolds sold to Frank D. Singleton in 1913, the same year The Tribune was printed for the first time on an electrically-powered press. Sin-gleton held the paper until 1924, when the Cross family entered the Clayton newspaper business and began a 48-year relationship with The Tribune, branching off into the world of job shop printing to fulfill Rabun County’s needs for business stationery, invitations and the like.

Father L.P. Cross was publisher 1924-53 and was succeeded in the business by his son, R.E. Cross, from 1962-72. The Cross’ tenure was broken up 1953-62 by Ed-die Barker, an Atlanta journalist who decided to try his hand at running a mountain newspaper. Father and son Cross kept their job shop-printing business, though, and when they bought The Tribune back from Barker in 1962, the operation was reunited once more.

L.P. Cross made a name for himself not just as a news-paperman, but as an astute observer and predictor of lo-cal weather. He wrote about it weekly in his “Ramblings in Rabun” column, earning the nickname of The Philos-opher of Needy Creek for his wise and colorful writings.

The Clayton Tribune was sold in 1971 to Community Newspapers Inc. The paper remains under CNI’s own-ership, although the helm of Community Newspapers has changed hands to current owners Tom Wood and Dink NeSmith. Publishers under CNI have been: Jim Wallace, 1972-89; Phil Hudgins, 1990-95; Russell Majors, 1995-2002; Steve Meadows, 2002-11; and Michael Leon-ard, 2011-present.

Now celebrating its 115th year, The Tribune is Clay-ton’s oldest continuously operating business. It has sur-vived and even thrived through numerous blizzards, bullets fired through the front window, the Great De-pression, two world wars, and the coming of Hollywood with the filming of numerous movies in the county.

Clayton and the rest of Rabun County have changed dramatically since 1897, emerging from a remote moun-

tains region of farms and rugged hills to a community of diversity and economic growth. The Clayton Tribune

continues the same, though, providing Rabun County residents a complete package of news and advertising information weekly.

Michael Leonard is publisher of The Clayton Tribune.

ClaytonJournalism and the First Amendment of Northeast Georgia 7A

The current staff of The Clayton Tribune poses with plaques and certificates won in the 2012 Georgia Press Association Better Newspaper and Advertising Award competitions. Staffers are, from left, Justin Caudell, staff writer/page designer; Jeri McCall, classifieds/circulation; Heidi Cook, bookkeeping; Jason Daniels, graphic design; Shelby Harrell, staff writer; Michael Leonard, publisher; Blake Spurney, editor; Cyndy Brogdon, advertising sales, and Brooke Wilson, advertising sales.

John Reynolds started The Clayton Tribune in 1897.

The Clayton Tribune also had a lucrative job shop printing busi-ness for many years, handling business stationery, business cards, flyers and other items for Rabun County. This 1938 photo shows the entrance to Cross Printing Co. and The Clay-ton Tribune under the 1924-53 ownership of L.P. Cross.

By Blake Spurney Complaints started coming

in 2004 about “verbal orders” being used by the Rabun Coun-ty Department of Family and Children Services to pick up people’s children. One sheriff’s deputy in particular felt law en-forcement was being used as a fall guy in case violence erupt-ed during a pick-up. Deputies were called to keep the peace when DFCS workers went to get a child.

One person whose children were picked up raised more at-tention to the issue. The ques-tion that initially came up as far as a news story was wheth-er any of the allegations made against DFCS by angry parents could be corroborated. It turned out that DFCS stonewalled by hiding behind a shroud of con-fidentiality.

The DFCS director staunchly said she couldn’t say anything to confirm or deny allegations. Any story about a social wel-fare agency involving children being seized becomes nearly

impossible without a chance to verify the complaints.

The groundswell of allega-tions of abuse kept increasing, and the The Clayton Tribune referred a number of people to a lawyer who took up the cause. A couple of specific complaints had drawn the interest of a lo-cal lawyer, and he took on some clients pro bono. A common theme was people were forced to undergo drug tests even though drugs weren’t necessar-ily part of the underlying case for DFCS getting involved with their families.

A watershed moment hap-pened when a police officer and part-time deputy took out a warrant against a DFCS in-vestigator for reckless conduct because she did not take cus-tody of children in a house the officer thought was too unsani-tary for children. No deputy would serve the warrant, and a pre-warrant hearing was held instead. The same law-yer who took on DFCS cases, Brian Rickman, represented the DFCS investigator at the

hearing, and the magistrate determined no probable cause existed for the charge. A short time later, however, the DFCS investigator was fired.

The officer who attempted to bring a charge against the DFCS investigator was the girlfriend of another DFCS investigator, Nicole Rivera. They lived in the same house as Rivera’s mother, who owned the drug-testing company that DFCS used. Rivera’s sister also worked for the company and was a jailer with the sheriff’s office. Stories reported on the fired investigator and the po-tential conflict of interest. The DFCS director said repeatedly that she had checked with peo-ple above her, and the agency determined there was no con-flict.

The story picked up steam with one case in which a wom-an claimed her daughter duped her into signing away her rights, and a doctor in another county had custody of the child. Former state Sen. Nancy Schae-fer attended the closed hearing

with BJ Walker, former head of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, which over-sees DFCS. Schaefer set up a town hall meeting for people to air their grievances against DFCS, and people waited in line all day and into the evening to tell how their rights were being violated.

The Clayton Tribune ob-tained records from DHR about the drug testing company for a story that showed Rabun was spending four times as much on drug testing as other counties with similar populations. The juvenile judge at the time, Jo-anna Temple, had given DFCS a blank check for drug testing and approved of the verbal or-ders. By this time, Rabun Coun-ty had attracted the attention of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s office and DHR.

There was a community out-cry and stories of children be-ing picked up from school with-out their parents’ knowledge by DFCS workers. Schaefer voiced a lot of anti-DFCS sentiments because she said the agency

was destroying families. A group of people formed a coali-tion of family unity to protest the local DFCS office. The head of the local domestic violence shelter, among others, voiced alarm that many people were afraid to make legitimate refer-rals to DFCS due to its reputa-tion for seizing children.

The state came to Rabun to investigate and five people were fired, including the director.

Temple, the judge, was not reappointed to her post. An in-depth investigation revealed many conflicts, including the fact that the police officer and her girlfriend’s mother, who owned the drug testing com-pany, were getting paid to do office work and look after foster children.

The fired investigator sued the agency and was awarded a $35.7 million judgment. The de-fendants didn’t appear in court, but the matter is still being liti-gated because the state might be liable for up to $2 million.

Blake Spurney is editor of The Clayton Tribune.

Tribune traces history to linotype on back of cart

Family and Children Services probe in Rabun uncovers many violations

Carolina authorities believed they were shot at another location before being dumped in a secluded area on U.S. For-est Service land.

The murder remains unsolved.

Lady Rebels’ state championshipThe Fannin County High School

Lady Rebels basketball team won the State AA Championship with an 81-64 win over Putnam County at the Macon Convention Center in Macon.

Jeff Robinson, then sports editor for The News Observer, summed it up in his story: “Mission accomplished. Four years, 103 wins, three region titles and three state final four appearances after they began varsity play, the five seniors who compose the starting lineup of the FCHS girls basketball team at long last can be described with the only adjective previously missing from their collective success story: state champions.”

The win was so exciting to local resi-dents, an impromptu parade formed when the team arrived back from Ma-con at 3 a.m.

It had started with a single police car meeting the team in Jasper, and ended with five police cars, other assorted emergency vehicles and 50 cars carry-ing fans.

Besides extensive coverage of the event, The News Observer published a 40-page tab dedicated to the victory.

The Great BlizzardThe “blizzard of the century” crip-

pled Fannin County and the Copper Basin in March of 1993, dumping more than three feet of snow in many parts of the region.

This resulted in extensive coverage, with a host of stories in the Wednesday issue following the weekend storm:

• Damage still being assessed by of-

ficials • Wright reports 200 rescued in Fan-

nin Co. • Utility companies busy restoring

electricity • Seven Cohutta campers rescued • Governor slated to check Basin area

and National Guard helps Meanwhile, the Lady Rebels basket-

ball team, cheerleaders and several fans were stranded in Macon during the state tournament.

Despite all the adversity, the newspa-per was printed and delivered on time.

River Road Rock slideIn November 2009, a rock slide closed

the River Road (U.S. Hwy. 64) through the Ocoee Gorge in Polk County, Tenn.

A video of a second slide at the same location was broadcast nationally. It showed workers scrambling out of the way at the direction of a Tennessee De-

partment of Transportation official just moments before the side of the moun-tain came down.

The slide caused traveling night-mares for readers of The News Observer traveling the east-west route.

The road was closed for nearly a year. The newspaper aggressively reported

the story and the progress in clearing the slide.

At one point, TDOT invited Publisher Glenn Harbison to tour the site to get a first-hand look at the work.

The tour followed editorials criticiz-ing the slow progress.

Government leaders, citizens, busi-ness people and TDOT officials agreed at the time a new road was needed around the Ocoee Gorge. Plans were speeded up to make this happen.

The newspaper continues to follow this story today, pushing for the comple-tion of a road to bypass the Ocoee River gorge.

Blue Ridge From Page 5A

History Center special section 2012.indd 20 8/30/12 10:13 PM