Strange But True Journalism Stories

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Confessions of a Watergate baby

May 17th, 2013, 12:56 pm by madisontaylor

There are only a handful of reasons why people of my generation decided to go into journalism.

1. To see the world.

2. To meet interesting people.

3. To get free stuff.

4. To help people.

5. To cover sports.

6. Watergate.

For me, put the check mark beside No. 6. Yes, I’m a Watergate baby.

The truth is, my interest in news actually predated the famously third-rate break-in during the summer of 1972 at the Democratic headquarters then based at the Watergate hotel in Washington. The break-in itself wasn’t that big a deal. In fact, it was barely worthy of a cop news item in the Washington Post, which was picked up by a new guy it had on staff at the time by the name of Bob Woodward. He was the nighttime reporter, hardly a big name . . . yet.

But all the unraveling that happened thereafter is the stuff of journalism and political legend.

Almost from the start, I was fascinated by the Watergate business. The truth is, I was always drawn to big news. My mom recalls that following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, I watched all the TV coverage — and she would emphasize all. At age 4, and nearly blind as a bat, I stood right in front of the black and white television. Mom said I was particularly riveted by the coverage of JFK’s funeral. My only personal recollection is of the white horses pulling the flag-draped casket that day. I thought it would never arrive at its destination, which was Arlington National Cemetery.

But during the years in which I was ages 12 and 13, this Watergate deal lassoed my attention in a way few non-baseball-related things had before or since. I read everything I could find about it — and there wasn’t much because in those days the Washington Post couldn’t just be picked up in rural Stokes County. Still, I monitored Watergate on network news and when the hearings began in Congress, I saw it on TV — even when we were on vacation in Myrtle Beach.

Yes, I gave up skee ball at the Pavilion to watch North Carolina Sen. Sam Ervin’s jowly queries of President Richard Nixon’s constipated-looking henchmen.

Ultimately, of course, Nixon resigned but not because of the break-in itself. No, that was just the cracked manhole cover into a fetid sewer of cover-ups, payoffs, illegal use of campaign contributions, enemies lists, IRS audits, break-ins into the offices of doctors, illegal wiretapping . . . the list goes on and on. The guilty even included agencies like the U.S. Department of Justice. Nixon got off lucky. Nearly everyone else who worked for him landed in one country club prison or another.

And all because of some newspaper reporters who wouldn’t take no for an answer, lost sleep tracking down mind-numbing amounts of paperwork or leads that often went nowhere and endured threats from the highest levels of government. They drank a lot of stale coffee, too, I suspect.

What I learned then and there is how important journalism can be. Sure, reporters work on significant stories, gut-wrenching stories, even amazing stories from time to time, but there is a much larger picture. Journalism practiced professionally and thoroughly is an obstacle to unfettered corruption, a guardian of freedom and a line of defense against government authority run amok. If it exists for no other reason, it’s to stand up to the powerful and pursue questions others can’t.

That’s how this deal was set up in the Constitution. It’s what the people who founded this country had in mind. Doesn’t really matter whether people in authority like it or not.

But it only works if the government is not allowed to throw up random roadblocks to public information, harm whistleblowers, seek retribution upon those who report the news or investigate news organizations without cause.

As a result of all this, of course, I decided to pursue a career in journalism. I brought along a finely honed sense of cynicism. I don’t have much faith in authority figures and trust relatively few in public life. I like to get answers when reporters pose questions and have no patience with government agencies that want to withhold any public documents — no matter the reason. I want to be able to write accurate and fair stories. When someone in government gives us a sound reason to hold an item, we usually listen. For example, we never want to publish a story that would harm an important police investigation.

Most reputable news organizations conduct business the same way. I know the Associated Press does. In fact, if there is a knock on the AP, it’s that it is too mild-mannered in its reporting, a hazard of being a one-size fits all type of operation.

So word this week that the U.S. Department of Justice secretly obtained the telephone records and other items from the AP and its staff because it was fishing for information about the source of a story the government didn’t like sent the journalism world into a collective Richard Nixon flashback. And it should have. The act is indefensible, even though the Obama Administration appears ready to try rather than reprimand the DOJ and call for the ouster of Attorney General Eric Holder. It’s standard operating procedure for an administration that isn’t even media-tolerant, forget media-friendly.

Sadly, for a president who ran on themes of hope and change, this all looks very 1972.

Posted in: Column collection • Past imperfect • Strange but true journalism stories | Post a Comment »

Through the looking glass

May 15th, 2013, 11:23 am by madisontaylor

Let’s face it, the people we elect to office aren’t perfect. Far from it. Intellectually we know this the day we cast a ballot. Despite campaign cycles that seem to last forever, by the time Election Day rolls around voters have no true idea who or even what they might be voting for or against.

It’s a crapshoot, really.

But it’s a safe bet that locally and nationally, anyone we vote for these days is pretty far removed from the great thinkers, adventurers and warriors who helped found this nation. I haven’t cast any ballots for the next James Madison lately, have you?

So I tend to view elected officials with a certain amount of skepticism and cynicism as they take office. I can’t help it really. That’s an occupational hazard. Besides, the loyal and partisan opposition to elected leaders are basically cartoons, when you think about it — like the movie scene in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” where the human figure tells Roger Rabbit “no” in order to make him eventually yell “yes.”

But what I try to do is give anyone the benefit of the doubt as they rise to a political office. They all deserve a chance to either succeed or fail without being badgered to death with criticism or overwhelmed with praise. And while I might not always agree with what a political leader does or says, I wait until they really screw it up to get too mouthy about it. George W. Bush, for example, didn’t really get my blood boiling until he sent troops into Iraq. What a bonehead play. From that point, it was all downhill.

And Barack Obama? Well, I’m not a fan of how health care reform played out — but something needed to be done and no one else was willing to step up to the plate. And he seems preoccupied with being a celebrity in chief as opposed to a commander in chief. Other than that, though, I wanted to see what he might accomplish.

But recent events: The bungling of the Benghazi aftermath (just spit out the story and get on with it); the recent revelations of how the IRS perhaps targeted opposition political groups for extra attention when Obama-friendly groups did not receive similar scrutiny; and most especially the Department of Justice’s unwarranted search of telephone records at the Associated Press, all paint a disturbing image of an administration lurching perilously out of control and willing to steamroll anyone who dares voice opposition or raise a question. The matter of investigating a press organization is particularly troubling. Who, if not the press, is going to record and report actions taken by government on every level? That the press could be targeted by a law-enforcement arm of the government is a downhill ski run to government-controlled media and the end of any truth in our nation.

If we’re not there already.

I’m interested to see where the Obama Administration goes from here. It has to hold itself and its branches accountable on some level. And the Department of Justice must rethink its role and how it goes about its business. What is clear, is that it’s become an agency that believes whatever end it seeks justifies any means necessary — even trampling the rights of a free press. It’s time to clean house there. Well past time, perhaps.

Let’s see what unfolds.

Posted in: Just thinking out loud • Politics too complicated for politicians • Strange but true journalism stories | Post a Comment »

A job nobody wanted

May 11th, 2013, 8:00 pm by madisontaylor

The family of Lee Harvey Oswald at his funeral in November, 1963.

There are a lot of reasons to remember the Rev. Louis Saunders, a native of a small Eastern North Carolina town most couldn’t find on the map without a magnifying glass.

Forget that he studied theology at Duke University or received a divinity degree at Vanderbilt or completed chaplain’s school at Harvard.

And don’t even stop to consider that he joined World War II after Pearl Harbor, survived the Allied invasion of Normandy then wound up in the Pacific Theater. And then he up and remained in the Philippines after the war as a missionary and built the first high school in a remote province there.

Yes, all of that stuff is particularly noteworthy, but in this case, not really.

Because the Rev. Louis Saunders, a native of a town called Richlands who passed away at age 88 in 1998, was a key figure in one really big historic event. Most probably never heard of him.

He’s the man who buried Lee Harvey Oswald.

LEARNING ABOUT often astonishing tales is at least part of why the newspaper business is so addictive.

This Louis Saunders thing is like that.

I found out about him for the first time about 18 or so years ago when I worked for the Jacksonville Daily News. One of our reporters covered graduation night at Richlands High School. For those who don’t know, Richlands (pronounced like two distinct words rich lands), is a town steeped in a farming tradition and named for the quality soil found there. Up until a few years ago, travelers were greeted at the town limits by a sign that also hailed it as “The Town of Perfect Water.” Later testing proved this not to be exactly true, so Richlands leaders saw fit to take down this misleading piece of municipal advertising.

Anyway, our reporter came back that night talking about the graduation speaker, an alumnus who was the presiding pastor at the funeral for Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 — if you believe the Warren Commission Report.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“Nope,” came the reply.

In November of 1963, Saunders was executive director for the 20-church Fort Worth (Texas) Council of Churches and watching events unfold on TV like everyone else. He heard on the Monday after Kennedy’s assassination that Oswald — himself gunned down on live TV while in police custody — would be buried in Fort Worth.

“I felt some responsibility for the religious community,” he told Daily News reporter C. Mark Brinkley in 1997, just a few months before passing away.

That’s how Saunders came to take ownership of what became a job no one wanted — saying a few words at the gravesite of the most hated man in America.

After contacting the funeral home about arrangements, Saunders said he was assured that a member of the local clergy would be there to conduct the service. But he wanted to make sure everything happened as planned so he attended the service at Rose Hill Cemetery.

And of course, it didn’t. The pastors who agreed to officiate did not show up. Saunders had been afraid something like that might happen and tried to line up volunteers just in case.

He got no takers.

”I got more and more anxious,” Saunders said in 1997. “I think there were hundreds of photographers — all lined up, maybe three rows deep.”

That’s when he was approached by Oswald’s mother, Marguerite, and asked to perform the service, the New York Times reported.

He couldn’t turn down a mother, even the mother of America’s biggest villain. And it was the Christian thing to do.

With neither preparation, nor a Bible, Saunders took on the chore nobody else would do.

”It’s easy to say something that can be misinterpreted,” Saunders said. “I didn’t want to do that.”

According to the New York Times, he read the 23rd Psalm and then offered one of the shortest eulogies ever.

“Mrs. Oswald tells me that her son, Lee Harvey, was a good boy and that she loved him. And today, Lord, we commit his spirit to your Divine care.”

THEY BURIED Tamerlan Tsarnaev on Thursday. It was at an undisclosed location. No media were there to document the funeral of one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers, arguably America’s newest edition of most hated villains.

And it happened after a massive game of keep-away. No one wanted to bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev in their town. In all, officials in Massachusetts received 120 offers of graves from the U.S. and Canada. None worked out. Even a site at a state prison was rescinded.

People didn’t want the notoriety in their back yard.

“It’s not only Massachusetts that doesn’t want him,” a Worcester, Mass. funeral home director said. “Nobody wants him. And all these people who have donated graves, I’ve made some calls and said to somebody in the cities and towns where the graves were, ‘Hey, we would like to bury the guy there that was part of the marathon bombing.’”

The response? “You’re not gonna do that here.”

The problem prompted Worcester police Chief Gary Gemme to say, “We are not barbarians. We bury the dead.”

That’s when I thought of the Rev. Louis Saunders, who took on an unenviable and perhaps distasteful task in November 1963 because it was the Christian thing to do and the right thing to do.

He would’ve understood.

Posted in: Column collection • Strange but true journalism stories | Post a Comment »

An open and shut case

April 29th, 2013, 12:46 pm by madisontaylor

George Adams sends me email all day long. He’s the Alamance County representative for the Tar Heel Senior Legislature, a conservative and a devoted follower of local news. He reads everything that’s out there about our community.

Over the weekend he sent me this, after, I suspect, reading about the vote last week in the state Senate regarding local government or court public notices being published only on government websites. We publish a weekly record each weekend of how our legislators are voting in Raleigh so folks here at home can see what they’re up to. Alamance County’s state senator, Rick Gunn, voted that a handful of counties, including Guilford, would no longer have to publish so-called “legal notices” in the newspaper. I think the measure won by three votes in the Senate but it still has to go before the House.

Here’s what George wrote to me on Saturday morning.

Mr Taylor:

How does it feel to be betrayed by our state Senator Gunn on this important issue for our local newspapers and for the elderly who most of which do not have access to a computer? I guess you are beginning to feel like Big Joe Tickle did when the City of Burlington bamboozled him.

I understand their argument about this will save the cities and towns some money but how much of these saving do you think will go toward reducing taxes or recruiting new jobs for our unemployed in this city and county?

Sir, I think you might find any savings that are accrued in the pockets of the managers and department heads of these cities and towns.

I hope Rep Riddell and Rep Ross will vote against this blatant attempt to shut off information to our Senior Citizens. I guess we will see if the rumor is true that Mr. Ross is the City of Burlington’s man in Raleigh!

George Adams

MY TAKE: First, thanks to George for taking up the cause for open and available access to public information. And he makes the best argument. This is not a newspaper issue — though we do stand to lose money at a time when we can least afford to. No, this is a matter of who will be shut out of local government, foreclosures, etc., if this law is both passed, then spread to other counties like so much legislative kudzu.

It will be the seniors who don’t have computer access and don’t want it — like my own 81-year-old mom — and the poor who simply can neither afford to go online or don’t have the education to do so.

This is both a shame and a sham.

Republican leadership has been pushing this measure since the party gained power in Raleigh, largely because a few power brokers don’t like newspapers all that much. But by punishing the ink-stained wretches because we report what they do, they also penalize those who are otherwise powerless to stop them.

Will there be a time when local governments can get out of the legal ad business? Yes. I think that will come sooner rather than later — perhaps 10 years or so.

In the meantime, newspapers can post both in print and online to meet the largest number of potential readers.

As for Rick Gunn, I’m not sure there’s any feel a sense of betrayal on my part. Newspapers have to find their own way to succeed in the world today like anyone else. And he owes us nothing and we owe him the same. That’s as it should be between the media and politicians. But I do get the idea that he has no interest in open government or the rights of citizens, just towing the party line. That is a loss for everyone.

Hopefully, open government will get more daylight in the House, where both Republican Reps. Dennis Riddell and Steve Ross have pledged to keep the public notices accessible to the highest number of people.

That’s good representation folks.

Posted in: Politics too complicated for politicians • Strange but true journalism stories • Why we do things | Post a Comment »

An offer I couldn’t refuse

April 17th, 2013, 10:26 am by madisontaylor

Lindsey Page called me last week with a proposition. Would I be interested, he asked, in attending a ceremony marking his induction in the North Carolina High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame?

My first thought was “why.” After all, I haven’t been a sports writer since around 1989, less than a year after Lindsey guided his Bartlett Yancey team to the state 3A title in 1988. That’s about 25 years ago, but who’s counting?

My second thought was this: “Absolutely.”

Indeed, I was stunned, flattered and ultimately honored by the invitation from a coach I had known so long ago. I was the prep sports writer for the Times-News in 1987 and ’88, when Lindsey had two of the best teams in his 34-year, 519-win career. We met before that, when I was a rookie sports writer for the Reidsville Review. Caswell was the next county over from Rockingham. Reidsville-Bartlett Yancey was a rockin’ rivalry.

But from 1986 to ’88 I covered dozens of Bucs games, first in the old gym folks called the “Crackerbox” and then the brand new and much larger facility people tabbed “The Lindsey Dome.” I also wrote features and columns about the new gym, his players and one long, in-depth profile of the coach himself. And I was at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill the night Bartlett Yancey defeated North Surry for the only state title in Lindsey’s career. People like to joke that everyone in tiny Caswell County was in the Smith Center for the game. A thief could’ve made off with the entire county.

“You were my main man,” he told me last week. “People like you are part of the reason I’m (getting inducted).”

I thought that was stretching things a tad, but it made me proud anyway.

But publicity certainly didn’t hurt. Yanceyville isn’t an easy stop by an interstate. It’s not near a metropolitan area. Fact is, it’s rural and then some. Because I grew up in the country myself, it was easy to recognize the isolation folks feel out there when it comes to media coverage. But my home county (Stokes) is downright citified compared to Caswell.

“We always appreciated the writers who came out to cover us. Gary McCann over in Greensboro is a friend who did a good job,” Lindsey said. “In the early 1980s Steve (Mann) used to come over from your place. And Al Mealey in Danville did a great job covering us.”

Newspaper sports staffs also appreciate it when schools they cover meet them halfway. The truth is, it’s impossible to get to all the games, or even half. Coaches who call in who are professional, prepared and pleasant — well, that goes a long way toward building media relationships that last during good times and bad. There was never a complaint about coverage from Lindsey, or anyone else affiliated with Bartlett Yancey basketball. No snarky remarks about things in stories, either. Hey, politeness counts.

“I always believed in calling in our games,” Lindsey said, “I could never understand coaches that didn’t call in games. Do they think if they don’t call in a loss it doesn’t count? I don’t know.”

Is it any wonder I liked going there?

I was reminded just how much at the induction ceremony. It was wonderful to see Lindsey with his wife Myra, they celebrated their 53-year wedding anniversary on Wednesday by the way. Sons Barry and Steve were there as well as daughter Lesley. I watched Steve Page, a standout basketball player at Elon himself, stand with arms folded as he chatted with friends. He looked like his dad from years gone by.

Lindsey called marrying Myra “probably the best decision I ever made. We have four kids, 15 grandkids and a great-grandkid coming this summer. Our family’s not decreasing, it’s ballooning.

And I was delighted to sit at a table for the induction dinner with a Caswell County contingent of administrators or coaches past and present. They shared stories about Lindsey, or about wild times at Bartlett Yancey High School. Who knew things could get so crazy in a place so small?

It was Lindsey who summed things up best.

“I love the county. Yanceyville is a small city but we’re basically rural. I just love the people here,” he said.

Me too.

Thanks for the memories, coach.

Posted in: Admissions by the author • Let's talk sports • Strange but true journalism stories | Post a Comment »

The Winn-Dixie shootings: Memories revisited

April 11th, 2013, 11:44 am by madisontaylor

I never get much sleep on the night before a column is to be published about something controversial. That’s even truer when I write a news or feature story. My biggest concerns? Did I get it right? Was it fair? And, did I screw it up in some way? I’m a worrier by nature and when it comes to reporting, it’s especially so. That’s been the case for more than 30 years.

Over the past 20, though, I haven’t written many news or feature stories of note. Oh, I type up crime briefs or write the occasional book review — but the process of coming up with a story idea, doing the research, conducting interviews, organizing and crafting the actual article is something I haven’t done in a long, long time.

Last week that changed with a story headlined “Warning sign.” It was about the Winn-Dixie shootings 20 years ago in Burlington. It was a 72-column-inch look at how city police conducted business on April 1, 1993 in comparison to today when such shootings are far more common. My original idea was to write a short column about it. I wasn’t even sure I could write a complex story like that one anymore.

But I had so much great information from Times-News stories written during that time by former colleagues Chris Cary, Jim Wicker, Vonda Hampton and Susan Shinn as well as fresh interviews with retired police chief John Glenn and former Burlington officer and current Sheriff’s Office spokesman Randy Jones that the story took on a life of its own.

I’m glad I wrote it, even if it did mean a sleepless Friday night and Saturday morning. The story got tremendous feedback from readers who offered a variety of comments and recollections. My friend and historian Walter Boyd said many in his circle liked the story quite a bit. And my longtime friend and former boss Don Bolden paid me the best compliment. “You should do more of these,” he said.

I put together some comments and observations.

Here are a few.

About Gerald Snead

One of the most interesting tidbits came from a colleague at the Times-News now who was in another line of work in 1993. Winn-Dixie gunman Gerald Snead was one of his employees on the day of the shooting.

He recalled that Snead was quite agitated when he left work that day. In fact, my colleague was so concerned about him that he called his house and left a message asking Snead if he was OK. He never heard back from Snead, of course. By that time, Snead was shot and killed by police when he refused to drop his weapon after killing one woman and wounding two others inside the grocery store. But police did question my colleague several times after the incident.

“Did Snead have mental problems as the SBI noted,” I asked.

“Not when he took his medication,” my colleague said.

Another fascinating reflection about Snead came from Ted Nelson, a longtime friend who lives in Winston-Salem. Ted, a Graham native, was a reporter with me on my first job out of college at the Reidsville Review. Small world time on this one.

“The summer before this happened I was with my wife, Carolyn, and our 13-year-old daughter, Gina. We were at Disney World in Florida and Gina wanted to ride Space Mountain. We had been on the ride before so we didn’t want to ride it that day. We were talking to a group of people we had met from Burlington. A young man in the group volunteered to take the ride with Gina, so we said that would be OK and he did. We never saw him again until I turned the TV news on the evening of April 1, 1993. There was a picture of Gerald Howard Snead, the man identified as the shooter that day in Burlington — the same man Gina rode on Space Mountain with the summer before. Our jaws dropped and we looked at each other in disbelief…”

Whew. Weird.

And another acquaintance had this to say about Snead.

“I grew up with Gerald Snead, went to school with him for 12 years, rode the same bus … always a quiet kid, not so good at sports, lonely even in a group of people, later delivered pizzas for Dominos, the owners and I were talking about Gerald last night, as a matter of fact. They told me Gerald would obsess over the fact that he was 2 cents short of tip money. Maybe this was the only control he ever had over his short, sad life, who knows?”

Who knows, indeed

About Pam Pike

My longtime friend and former Jacksonville Daily News colleague Patricia Smith grew up in Alamance County. She knew Snead’s victim Pam Pike.

“This was very sad. Pam Pike was the younger sister of one of my best friends in high school, and I got to know her when I’d spend the night with my friend. Later on, if Pam saw me out somewhere, she’d always say hello. One time, I remember, she yelled across the post office parking lot to say hello. I also remember sitting the Jacksonville Daily News newsroom (I was on the business page at the time) and seeing the story come across the wire). I called my parents that night to find out if it was the Pam Pike I knew.”

Location, location, location

Walter Boyd had a question about just where the Winn-Dixie store was located in New Market Square at the time of the shooting. I wrote that it was later moved after the shooting to a space now occupied by Harris Teeter. He didn’t live here when the shopping center was built and only remembered Winn-Dixie being on the corner. He said current Harris Teeter employees say the shooting took place inside where the store is now.

Not true.

When I first started to research the incident, a locator map by then-Times-News graphic artist Elizabeth Landt placed the store in the general vicinity of where TJ Maxx is located today. I verified this with John Glenn. Now Walter has it down to record in his ongoing history book of Burlington.

On that day

Got a note by email Sunday from Mike Newsome who appreciated the story but it certainly brought back memories.

“I was one of 2 paramedics in the first ambulance to arrive on scene. The call first came in as “hostage situation”, soon changed to “heart attack”. We were directed to go behind the building and as I got out I saw several policemen, guns drawn, waving us back. I later found out the gunman had not been brought down about that time. In a couple more minutes the back door flew open. Just inside a cop was doing CPR on an elderly man. He had had a heart attack at the back of the store when this all started. We put him in the truck, his wife up front. A fireman drove the ambulance to Memorial Hospital while we were doing our thing. The patient lived several days as I recall, but never regained consciousness. Thanks again for the story.”

And a commenter on Facebook offered this memory.

“Remember like it was yesterday. I was at the intersection when police came from all directions and my husband at the time worked for Serv-Pro who went in and cleaned up from it. It affected him as well to see all the carnage.”

A reporter reflects

Vonda Hampton was on the team of reporters who covered the shooting on April 1, 1993 for the Times-News. I sent a message to her via Facebook for some of her thoughts. This is what she wrote in return.

“I remember the shooting well and it’s hard to believe twenty years have passed since that day. I was sitting at my desk when news of the shooting came over a police scanner that was situated on police beat reporter Chris Cary’s desk, which was left of mine. Times-News reporter Murray Glenn and photographer Sherry DiBari ran from the newsroom immediately and arrived at the store in time to hear the final shots being fired. Murray Glenn told me later that when the shots rang out, he ducked for cover, but Sherry “ran towards the store,” camera in hand. I recall a number of reporters, myself included, standing in the store parking lot, interviewing bystanders and waiting for news on casualties and motive. We stood there for what seemed like forever and the updates were few and far between.

“Once the victim’s name was known, I was pulled off the store and sent to the home of Pam Pike and her fiancé at the time. I was told not to come back without talking to him, but that proved to be impossible. The couple lived in a modest house down a winding road in Graham. There was a car in the driveway when I arrived but despite repeated knocks, no one came to the door. I waited a long time and finally left a note in the door, asking for an interview. I returned to the house multiple times that day and sat in the driveway waiting for him, but never connected with her fiancé. In the years since, I have often wondered what happened to him, and if he ever married someone else.

“That Winn-Dixie was a central, bustling place where I shopped for groceries. You could hardly run in without seeing someone you knew from the community. Following the incident, I never passed or entered the store again without thinking about the shooting, Pam Pike, and her fiancé. If I passed it today, I would still think of them.”

My thanks to all who contributed to this story and subsequent blogs about it. And perhaps Don is right, I need to do these kinds of stories more often.

Posted in: Inside the Times-News • Strange but true journalism stories • The e-mailbag | Post a Comment »

An ethical guy, that’s our Bob

April 10th, 2013, 7:59 am by madisontaylor

This is why I both like and respect our sports editor, Bob Sutton.

Bob’s a huge Syracuse fan, something not a lot of people know. He certainly doesn’t advertise it. In fact, many in our community are convinced that he harbors some great love for either Duke or Carolina. The truth is, he doesn’t give a hoot what team from around here wins or loses. He just likes covering the games.

But he bleeds Orange. And on Saturday, he drove to Atlanta in hopes of buying a ticket to see Syracuse play Michigan in the Final Four semifinal game. He did so like any other fan, not as a professional journalist. As a result, he tried to gain access to the Georgia Dome as any other fan might, by buying a ticket on his own.

Bravo.

More than a few unethical journalists out there would have applied for a press credential and attended the game as a fan disguised as reporter with no intention of filing a story. I’ve known a few who would do so and not feel one bit bad about it. They are not respectable and reflect poorly on our business. The ones who make up reasons to file stories just to attend something they want to see aren’t high on my list, either.

Bob’s not like that at all.

Sadly, Bob never got inside the Georgia Dome.

“It was a disaster,” he told me on Monday.

Bob said a mob was outside the Dome trying to buy tickets on Saturday — right up to game time. Outside of one or two priced at an absurd $800, nothing was available. There simply were no tickets to be had, which is unusual. Bob wound up watching the game on a large screen in a nearby convention center. Ironically enough, people inside the Georgia Dome probably watched most of the game on big-screen TVs inside the arena because their seats were so far from the floor.

Part of the visible shortage of printed tickets was probably due to the new flashseats or flash ticketing options now available. Bob discovered that people can order tickets online then enter the game or concert venue by swiping their credit card at a gate. There is no physical ticket at all.

Bob and I are alike on this point. Bob decided not to use that option before going to the site because he simply didn’t trust not having a ticket in hand. In the digital world, though, the two of us will have to change with the times.

The good part of flashseats is that people who will actually use the tickets have access to them. Scalpers can’t simply buy up blocks of tickets then gouge customers outside arenas. The bad news? No tickets for sale at all.

And as editor of the Times-News, the best news is, our sports editor is one ethical guy.

Bob explains how the Orange got to the Final Four during a meeting last week in my office.

Posted in: Inside the Times-News • Let's talk sports • Strange but true journalism stories | Post a Comment »

AP rips off the label

April 2nd, 2013, 12:57 pm by madisontaylor

When I returned to Burlington to rejoin the Times-News in 2007 I was taken aback by how angry the debate here had become over Hispanic immigration — more specifically, the number of Mexican residents who entered this country illegally, then stayed.

It was perhaps the hottest button issue I had encountered since 1992. At that time, I had just moved to the Jacksonville, N.C. area where we covered Camp Lejeune. President Clinton took office with a vow to change military policy so people who were openly gay could serve their country. Now, that was an angry time. People moved from the area because of it, including one of our staff members at the Daily News. And this was before internet message boards.

It was an ugly environment with sign-carrying protesters and vandalism at a local gay bar.

The atmosphere was similar in Alamance County regarding immigration. At that time, the Times-News was sharply criticized by both sides for almost any story we published about the issue. The comments were at once pointed, often unfair and sometimes just mean or bigoted. Welcome to trolls on websites.

One area of major contention was in how we identified those in the country illegally. None of the identifiers we tried satisfied anyone, including ourselves. Immigrant, illegal immigrant, illegal, alien, illegal alien, undocumented . . . the list goes on. None were exactly right, or even partially right. Some were flat wrong or simply weird.

Other newspapers had the same problem, as did the Associated Press. After much debate a few years ago, the AP stayed with “illegal immigrant.” Because we historically follow AP style — as best we can anyway, sometimes AP doesn’t even follow its own style very consistently — we did so again.

Today, the AP changed its policy, and so will we.

Jim Romensko’s journalism blog posted the press release from the Associated Press about the change. Here’s the text.

The AP Stylebook today is making some changes in how we describe people living in a country illegally.

Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explains the thinking behind the decision:

The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally.

Why did we make the change?

The discussions on this topic have been wide-ranging and include many people from many walks of life. (Earlier, they led us to reject descriptions such as “undocumented,” despite ardent support from some quarters, because it is not precise. A person may have plenty of documents, just not the ones required for legal residence.)

Those discussions continued even after AP affirmed “illegal immigrant” as the best use, for two reasons.

A number of people felt that “illegal immigrant” was the best choice at the time. They also believed the always-evolving English language might soon yield a different choice and we should stay in the conversation.

Also, we had in other areas been ridding the Stylebook of labels. The new section on mental health issues argues for using credibly sourced diagnoses instead of labels. Saying someone was “diagnosed with schizophrenia” instead of schizophrenic, for example.

And that discussion about labeling people, instead of behavior, led us back to “illegal immigrant” again.

We concluded that to be consistent, we needed to change our guidance.

So we have.

Is this the best way to describe someone in a country without permission? We believe that it is for now. We also believe more evolution is likely down the road.

Will the new guidance make it harder for writers? Perhaps just a bit at first. But while labels may be more facile, they are not accurate.

I suspect now we will hear from some language lovers who will find other labels in the AP Stylebook. We welcome that engagement. Get in touch at stylebook@ap.org or, if you are an AP Stylebook Online subscriber, through the “Ask the Editor” page.

Change is a part of AP Style because the English language is constantly evolving, enriched by new words, phrases and uses. Our goal always is to use the most precise and accurate words so that the meaning is clear to any reader anywhere.

Here is how the AP’s updated stylebook entry will read.

illegal immigrationEntering or residing in a country in violation of civil or criminal law. Except in direct quotes essential to the story, use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant. Acceptable variations include living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission.

Except in direct quotations, do not use the terms illegal alien, an illegal, illegals or undocumented.

Do not describe people as violating immigration laws without attribution.

Specify wherever possible how someone entered the country illegally and from where. Crossed the border? Overstayed a visa? What nationality?

People who were brought into the country as children should not be described as having immigrated illegally. For people granted a temporary right to remain in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, use temporary resident status, with details on the program lower in the story.

MY TAKE: The style may change, but I doubt the debate will die down. But this is what we’ll try our best to follow, complicated as it might be.

Posted in: Strange but true journalism stories • The Grammarian • Why we do things | Post a Comment »

Disgusted Deacons fans kick it up a notch

March 14th, 2013, 9:40 am by madisontaylor

Times-News sports writer Conor O’Neill made sure this morning to point out the front of the Greensboro News & Record sports section to me, especially the advertisement at the bottom of the page.

Gadzooks, was my response.

Usually the front page ads, a rather recent addition to cash-strapped newspapers, are for cars or jewelry. This one, though, was a little different and had a specific target audience of, well, one.

The black and white ad was purchased by a group identified as a website, www.firebz.com. The main headline was a hashtag, #BuzzOut. Then it listed its primary goal, to bring attention to one of the reasons some believe Wake Forest should fire Jeff Bzdelik, its basketball coach for the past three years.

The target audience? Wake Forest Athletic Director Ron Wellman.

Well, that’s probably not exactly accurate. The target was much larger. The people behind the ad wanted as many ACC basketball fans and league power players to see it as possible and bring embarrassment to Wellman, who hired Bzdelik after firing Dino Gaudio in 2009. The buyers certainly wanted to create talk at the tournament and did so by purchasing premium space in the main newspaper at the tournament’s home city of Greensboro this year.

Quite a statement, and a costly one as well. A friend of mine who works at the Times-News told me he knows someone involved with buying the ad. He was informed that it would run all four days of the tournament in the sports section, but not necessarily the front page. The total cost was $2,500, my friend said.

That’s a huge chunk of change for someone to shell out just because they think a college basketball coach sucks.

As a longtime Wake Forest fan I’ve watched the last few years of decline in the basketball program with a mixture of horror, disgust and resignation. When things are at their worst — think being down to previously winless in the league Georgia Tech by 20 points in the first half — I’m with the BuzzOut crowd. When my rational and thinking mind returns, I understand that it takes some time to gauge the ultimate success or failure of a coach in any sport. Could Bzdelik use another year? Probably.

But I also shake my head when it comes to how Wellman hired Bzdelik in the first place. After all, Bzdelik had a career losing record as a college coach and seemed more like the kind of basketball nerd who is great as an NBA assistant coach. The word is, the two were friends prior to the hire, something both deny, but do admit they were acquainted.

But after hearing Bzdelk answer questions, monitoring his clashes with the media, watching him on the sideline, and learning that he ended the phone-in segment of his phone-in radio show I often wonder what his original job interview with Wellman was like. I interview people for jobs and have for more than 20 years. I’m still trying to figure out at what point during the Bzdelik-Wellman interview that Wellman said to himself, “Hot damn, this is the guy we have to hire!”

I’m still puzzled.

Posted in: Let's talk sports • Strange but true journalism stories | Post a Comment »

Making the news

March 13th, 2013, 7:23 am by madisontaylor

Reporters and photographers cover fires for a living. They’re not usually involved in them.

That’s especially true when it comes to putting one out. Usually, that’s left to the professionals.

So Wednesday was a little different for Times-News reporter Molly McGowan, whose morning was pretty seriously altered by a fire in her apartment building off South Church Street. Let’s just say her morning coffee had to wait awhile.

Preliminary reports — and I got it from our photographer Sam Roberts who was in the office when the fire call came out over the scanner and drove to the site — indicate that the fire was in the apartment of neighbor. McGowan went upstairs after hearing a commotion and alertly used a fire extinguisher to put it out before the blaze could spread to other apartments.

“It was just a stove fire,” McGowan would say later.

Well, yes, but that doesn’t make it any less serious. We write regularly about stove fires that get out of control, causing fire, injury or fatalities. People panic and can’t remember what to do in those kinds of situations.

Molly didn’t. We’re pretty proud of her today.

Sam told me that Molly refused to be transported to Alamance Regional Medical Center for treatment of possible smoke inhalation. Firefighters on the scene advised her to go the emergency room on her own. She sent me a photo via Facebook a little later proving to me that she did indeed go to the ER for inspection by a doctor. I was glad to see it.

Sam said the damage was contained to the immediate area of the fire and that Molly’s apartment didn’t have any smoke or other damage at all.

“She’s very lucky,” Sam said.

He would know. Sam lost most of his possessions in a 2007 fire in a duplex on Fifth Street.