Jim Minter was a Georgia journalism giant

 

            If you are old enough, you know exactly where you were when JFK was shot or when Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon. Who can forget that Sept. 11, 2001, morning, when those evil hijackers dropped America to its knees?  

And then there are the milestone moments in our personal histories. I will never forget that June evening in 1982, sitting on a seaside bench on Jekyll Island. I was talking with a Georgia giant of journalism, the editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Jim Minter had an idea.

He saw possibilities.

In the background, I could hear the Atlantic’s waves lapping. But I concentrated on Jim’s low, almost grumbling voice. Within 15 minutes of back-and-forth exchanges, my soon-to-be treasured confidant charted a career path that I’ve been following for 44 years.

Jim’s idea was that I should talk with his boss, Tom Wood, president of Atlanta Newspapers Inc. Tom was looking to make a change. Tom and I had met through our serving on the boards of the Georgia Press Association and UGA’s Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Our mutual friend, Jim, thought Tom and I would be a good fit as business partners.

The hardest ship to keep afloat is a partnership, but Tom and I have been perfect partners. We brought different—but complementing—disciplines into Community Newspapers Inc. If you asked us to paint a room, I’d tackle the task with a roller and a sprayer. Tom—with his CPA acumen—would handle the windows and trim.

Jim was right.

But now, there’s a new challenge.

Jim Minter, 95, died on May 27.

Tom and I have lost one of our dearest friends and most ardent cheerleaders. I can’t imagine my life without the benefit of Jim’s wise counsel and never-ending encouragement.

Jim Minter was the only child of a Fayette County farmer/postmaster and a beloved teacher for whom a school is named. He grew up in tiny Inman during the Great Depression. He was no stranger to mules or blisters on his feet from tight brogans. In retirement, Jim purchased and restored the community’s train depot and post office, across from his boyhood home. It was a classic venue for his fellowship with family and friends. I treasure my happy times there.

Jim rose to the upper tiers of our profession, mentoring a legion of journalists. Perhaps the most famous of his mentees was Lewis Grizzard. No one understood the say-it-like-he-sees-it humorist and nationally syndicated columnist more than Jim.

Jim got his start as a sports reporter. Listening to him talk about Wally Butts, Bear Bryant, Bobby Dodd, Ty Cobb and a host of other athletic immortals put you right there on the front row of history reporting. It was the same for politics. He knew who did what and when—the good, the bad and the ugly. With his Google-like recall, I urged him to write a book. With his signature self-effacing chuckle, he’d just say, “Nahhhh.”

For months, Jim had been telling me that he was fading. My friend was miserable. He’d lost his mobility, even giving up riding to the mailbox on his lawn mower. He could say the most in a few words as anyone I know. For his wisdom-sharing savvy, Jim was my Star Wars Yoda.

Three weeks ago, without calling, I drove to McBride Road in Fayette County and knocked on the door. Jim’s caregiver greeted me. Downstairs, Jim was in his library with his loyal Labrador, Sam. Anne, his wife of 70 years, joined us.

Something told me to call Tom and patch him in on the speaker phone. The three of us bantered back and forth, scrolling through old stories. We laughed and laughed some more. And when I hung up, it hit me. Why didn’t I record our 30-minute conversation? Oh, the memories.

They say in the South, “If you see a box turtle on a fence post, you can know that it didn’t get there by itself.”

From a seaside bench on Jekyll Island in 1982, Jim Minter lifted this box turtle up onto a fence post. I’ll never forget that.

Thank you, my friend, my Yoda.

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com

Eddie Dalton creation is a glimpse of AI’s future

  

            Food and music are very different.

            But when it comes to the taste of either, they are first cousins. You like it, or you can leave it.

            I understand eating liver can be good for you, but it’s a “no thanks” for me.

            And that’s a ditto for opera and rap music. If you love those genres, help yourself. But pile my plate high with non-pop/rock country and Motown’s rhythm and blues (R&B), and soul, led by Sam Cooke, self-proclaimed “King of Soul.” My all-time favorite tunes are “Carolina beach music.” Not to be confused with California’s Beach Boys.

I’m talking about The Diamonds, The Tams, The Embers, The Drifters, The Clovers, Jerry Butler, Bruce Channel, The Temptations, The Dominoes, The Showmen, The Platters, Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs, The Four Tops, Lloyd Price, The Catalinas, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, The Band of Oz and more.

Oops, can’t forget The Swinging Medallions. Arguably, “Carolina Girls” by The Chairmen of the Board is the No. 1 beach-music shag song.

Shag music was made famous along the beaches of the Carolinas but spread kudzu-like across the South. Back in my 1960s UGA days, fraternity-house jukeboxes were crammed full of get-your-feet-moving beach music. Leather soles of a gazillion Weejuns were worn thin, shagging on the dance floors.

Former newspaperman Roy White of Mullins, South Carolina, was a regular at Myrtle Beach. His wife had leather soles stitched to the bottom of his favorite tennis shoes, so he could slide and shag to beach music on Ocean Drive.

But I digress.

Right now, there’s a fractious debate about artificial intelligence (AI). But what has AI got to do with music and dancing?

Well, plenty.

And almost everything.

Case in point: Eddie Dalton.

Who?

Eddie Dalton, so far, has three iTunes Top 10. The skyrocketing star was imagined by Dallas Ray Little of Greenville, South Carolina, who writes the lyrics. But Eddie Dalton is AI-generated from voice to visuals. I became a fan the first time that I heard his music streaming through the dashboard of my truck.

“Another Day Old” might be my right-now theme song. Oh, I’ll never tune out the original Carolina beach music. But I encourage you to listen to Eddie on any of the streaming services. I feel as though he’s a blend of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and BB King. Check out this excerpt from “Another Day Old”:

“We’re just passing through time like the wind through the pines

Just small little pieces in a bigger design

But the older I get, the more that I know

There ain’t nothing wrong with being another day old”

Even if music, specifically Eddie’s, is not your thing, there’s a deeper message in what is happening with his creation. My friend’s cousin, a Nashville songwriter with a wall full of gold records, says AI is a disrupter of the way it used to be. Old-school songwriters might take weeks to create lyrics. AI can whip out the words in less than a minute. Maybe not as good, but good enough to compete with humans.

And that’s the point.

Where are we headed, enamored with this new “shiny thing?”

Will people—particularly students—stop using their brains?

Is AI a jobs creator or a job-busting disrupter?

Even Pope Leo XIV has published a manifesto of his AI concerns.

Does anyone really know?

While I’m trying to develop my opinion, Eddie sings a hint:

“Time don’t stop and it don’t rewind

But around every corner there’s some to find.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com 

Elliott Brack’s purple pen inspired journalists to excel

  

            An old feed and seed store is why you are reading this.

            How’s that?

            Go back with me to 1962. What was once Strickland Feed & Seed was then the office of the Wayne County Press, an upstart weekly, a stone’s throw from the railroad tracks that split my hometown. That’s where I met Elliott Earl Brack.

We didn’t know each other, and that’s the rest of the story.

            As a member of the student council, I was on a mission to publish a telephone directory for the students of Jesup High School. The newspaper also had a print shop. Editor Brack introduced me to ink and paper. And as a bonus, he gave me a short course in advertising sales. We sold enough ads to pay the bill and bank a sizable profit.

            Four years later, I reconnected with Elliott. When I ran for UGA’s student senate, he printed my campaign materials. And a highlight of each week was receiving the Wayne County Press (WCP). It was just like a letter from home. He dubbed the WCP as “The People Paper.”

Elliott ran the newspaper as if his pants were on fire. He had the backbone and the guts to take on whatever needed taking on. He signed his editorials—EEB. He kept the community buzzing. Reading the letters to the editor was a must.

Fast-forward to 1971.

After graduating from Georgia in 1970, I completed my basic and advanced training for the Army National Guard. Pam had earned her degree, too. I was contemplating law school.

And then there was that phone conversation with EEB.

“We’ve got too many lawyers in Jesup already,” he said. “You’ve got a journalism degree. Why don’t you come home? We are trying to buy the Jesup Sentinel. You can be a partner with Dr. Lanier Harrell and me. I can run one of the newspapers. You can run the other.”

The story is much more complicated, but that’s the gist of it. Nonetheless, I was hooked. Within two weeks, Pam and I were in Jesup. She was preparing to teach first grade at my alma mater Orange Street Elementary. And I was enrolled in EEB’s community-journalism crash course. If he had known how little I knew, he wouldn’t have made the offer. It’s a good thing the purchase of the Jesup Sentinel stalled for five years.

In 1973 I was tossed into the deep end. Elliott and his family moved to Athens for what was to be a year. He was asked to be a visiting professor at UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. And then I got a call from EEB.

“Beside being a college professor,” he said, “I’ve always wanted to run a daily newspaper.” Bob Fowler had recruited him to be the vice-president and general manager of the Gwinnett Daily News in Georgia’s fastest-growing county. On Dec. 27, 1976, EEB and Doc cashed out. I stayed in, and The Press-Sentinel was born.

And for the 50 years since—even though he hasn’t been my boss or my partner—EEB “graded” my papers with a purple Flair pen. I relished every mark and comment because I respected his wisdom and opinion. I could wallpaper my office with his colorful comments.

When I got a message to call EEB’s son, Andy, I had an inkling of what I was about to hear. Elliott Earl Brack, 90, had died. Just hours earlier, I had read one of my mentor’s 10,000-plus columns. He was a thought-provoking journalist until the very end.

EEB’s passion for journalism was infectious. His son, Andy, is a newspaper publisher. My sons, Alan and Eric, have ink in their veins, too, as successful publishers. We all benefited from EEB’s tutelage. His purple messages will be indelible influences for the rest of our lives.

It all goes back to 1962 and that visit to the old feed and seed store. A pants-on-fire newspaperman planted a “seed” of possibility in my 23-year-old brain. And that’s why you are reading this. I can’t imagine having done anything else for the past 55 years.

But if EEB could read this, he’d scribble, in purple ink, “You wrote too long.”

 

 

 

 

 

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com 

UGA’s Grady College introduced me to Tom Johnson

  

            Tom Johnson and I met, circa 1980, while serving on the advisory board of UGA’s Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. He was publisher of the Los Angeles Times, and I was publisher of The Press-Sentinel and several South Georgia newspapers. We also share a connection by serving on the Richard B. Russell Foundation. Tom’s friendship and advice over the decades have been priceless.

            This past winter, Tom was in Athens to talk about his new book, DRIVEN: A Life in Public Service and Journalism from LBJ to CNN. My friend autographed a stack of DRIVEN for me to give to family and friends. If you haven’t read the splendid, history-packed book, I recommend it to you.

In 1990 Ted Turner recruited Tom to serve as president of CNN. Tom’s tenure at the revolutionary 24-hour news service started with a bang—the Gulf War. We are publishing Tom’s reflections about his most-famous former boss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com 

 

 

 

My years with Ted Turner

 by Tom Johnson 

   

            Yes, he could be outrageous.

            When a little girl fell into a well in Texas and the rescue of “Baby Jessica” unfolded live on TV, CNN’s ratings skyrocketed. Ted joked maybe CNN should place candy bars around other wells.

            Yet, you could also find him in war-torn regions poking sticks in the ground searching for land mines that children were stepping on, blowing themselves up.

            He was complicated.

Until I met Ted, I thought Lyndon Johnson was the most complex person I had ever known. Before I accepted the job as CNN’s president, I told him, “Ted, before you hire me, you need to know that I battle depression.”

            He shot back, “Hell, pal, let me tell you about me.” That’s all he said. It was classic Ted: disarming, revealing and removed, all at once.

            He was impatient with a restless energy that could make him difficult. If you were late for a meeting with him, it was almost a death sentence. I think the reason he hated delay was that he couldn’t wait to get to the future.

            Above all, Ted Turner was a visionary.

When he founded CNN as a 24-hour news channel, the other networks provided only morning and evening news shows. They would break into regular programming only for major events.

Ted saw the need for an around-the-clock news network. He envisioned CNN as a truly global channel that would provide honest, reliable, unbiased information to people around the world, especially in countries where independent news was suppressed.

            When I was considering accepting the job, I asked Ted what he would expect of the next president of CNN. He said, “I want us to make CNN the absolute best news network on the planet.”

When I asked him, “What are your policies about news?” he said, “Be fair.”

He wanted reporters to report, anchors to anchor and neither to editorialize. He wanted news to be the star, not the personalities.

            My first day at CNN was Aug. 1, 1990. The following day, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. I told Ted that if we were to be the premier news source for a possible war between the U.S. and Iraq, it could cost as much as $30 million over budget. His answer startled me: “You spend whatever you think it takes, pal.”

            With Ted’s total support, we established a special communications link, so that when all other networks lost their transmission capabilities from Baghdad, all eyes turned to CNN.

            Over the 11 years I was with Ted, we covered so many other stories—the fall of the Soviet Union, the O.J. Simpson trial, the Balkan wars, the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the Waco siege, the death of Princess Diana.

            What would those years have been like without CNN?

Ted told me that the most important thing he did in life was raising his five children. A close second was creating CNN.

            He was a man of many accomplishments. He won the America’s Cup, the renowned sailing race. He bought the Atlanta Braves and transformed them from one of baseball’s worst teams into one of its best.

You could call those rich man’s toys, but Ted cared far more deeply about the planet. In 1998 he donated $1 billion and created the United Nations Foundation to fund humanitarian causes such as helping refugees, fighting disease and clearing land mines.

He worked with former Sen. Sam Nunn to reduce the dangers of nuclear weapons with the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

He was a passionate steward of the land. Over the years, he acquired and worked to restore 2 million acres, cleaning the streams, removing the cattle, and reintroducing bison, gray wolves, and native plants and grasses. His bison herd now numbers over 45,000 head. On those lands, you can see what the Native Americans saw when they roamed there.

No mention of Ted’s life can ignore the love he had for Jane Fonda. They were remarkable together, sharing both passion and purpose in the common cause for peace.

Ted was dashing and charismatic with the neatly trimmed mustache of a Hollywood leading man of yesterday. He was a swashbuckler whose bravado exuded the promise of daring, romantic adventures.

Ted was a maverick like no one I have ever known.

We will miss you, pal. 

 

Tom Johnson, right, signs copies of his book for Dink 

NeSmith, left, in Athens, Georgia, last winter.

 

Bonus comes with the ‘free-couch switcheroo’

  

          Call it the Laugh-of-the-Month, the “free-couch switcheroo.”

          What?

          The best way to explain the switcheroo is to start at the beginning.

Our oldest grandson has a math diploma. Now, Wyatt is pursuing a UGA environmental engineering degree. The 22-year-old lives in an apartment in one of our barns. He brought his dorm-room recliner from Young Harris. But he’d like a couch, too. His budget said, “No.”

Besides, Wyatt’s SUV needed a set of tires.

Still, his mind hadn’t turned loose of the couch thing.

One day, I heard Wyatt’s new tires crunching gravel outside my office. Stepping inside, he announced, “Grandpa, there a couch in someone’s front yard. It has a ‘FREE’ sign on it.”

“Yeah, I saw that, too.”

“It’s leather. I think I can clean it up.”

“Well?”

“Could I use the farm truck and go get it?”

“Sure, but wouldn’t loading it on a trailer be easier?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How about let’s go hitch the small trailer?”

Pretty soon, we were trucking to Colbert.

When we pulled onto the edge of the free-couch yard, the big brown sofa looked pretty good.  But when I got closer, I could tell why it was being offered for free. Most of the leather was in tolerable shape. Some spots weren’t.  And behind the cushions was evidence that a white dog had enjoyed the sectional-sitting apparatus, a bunch.

Wyatt was not demurred. 

After all, it was free. 

And he could clean it up.

Back at the farm, we toted the two sections and the stack of cushions into the barn and placed them outside his apartment.

“I’ll work on this after exams,” he said.

The next day, I walked across the road to check on the kitchen-remodeling project of our neighbors. My friend said, with a chuckle, “I saw you and Wyatt hauling that couch yesterday.”

One of the carpenters piped up, “Are you talking about that couch in Colbert?” 

“Yep, Wyatt wanted a couch.”

The carpenter had eyed it, too.

            The contractor spoke up, “If Wyatt needs a couch, I have one that I’ll give him. I’ll send you a picture tonight.”

            When the photo popped up on my phone, I showed it to Wyatt.

            “Grandpa, that looks pretty good.”

            “It’s being steam-cleaned. Free couch and free delivery.”

            That triggered the country-roadside-couch switcheroo.

            “Grandpa, think you could help me load this leather couch?”

            “Sure thing, Wyatt. But you need to make a big ‘FREE’ sign first.”

            Fifteen minutes later, the two-piece couch was sitting beside the road with a cardboard sign duct-taped to the leather.

            “How long will it take, Wyatt, for the couch to get a new home?”

            “Grandpa, it won’t take long.”

            He’d witnessed our neighbors use the “FREE” strategy to dispose of truckloads of unwanted items. Everything from dishes to ceiling fans, even concrete blocks.

            Wyatt was right.

            Within hours, I caught a glimpse of a pickup—loaded with a brown leather couch—headed toward Colbert, or it could have been Comer.

            The other new-to-him free couch will be “switcheroo-ed” any day now.

            With a grin, Wyatt said, “‘Free’ works, Grandpa.”

            And with the switcheroo, we got a bonus.

“Free” laughable memories.

 

 

 

 

 

dnesmith@cninewspapers.com