By the way he strutted, you could tell that the young professor was enjoying his command of our journalism class.
Sharply dressed in a glen-plaid sport coat, a starched oxford-cloth shirt, a striped-silk tie, crisp khakis and spit-shined oxblood Weejuns, he pushed his tortoiseshell eyeglasses to the tip of his nose and gave us a menacing stare.
“I need you to know,” he scowled, “that I have never given an A+, and I don’t expect to give one this quarter.”
If I had been sitting in a quantum physics or calculus class, I would have murmured to myself, “Your record is safe with me, professor.”
But the textbook that he was thumping — as if he was the Rev. Billy Graham — was “The PRESS and AMERICA, An Interpretive History of Journalism.”
Wait a minute.
(I just walked over and plucked the book, heavy-enough-to-be-a-doorstop, from a shelf.)
This class wasn’t about using a slide rule or asking my brain to become Rhodes Scholar-smart. He was talking about one of my favorite subjects — history. All I had to do was listen, read and memorize.
The challenge was on.
His tests were multiple choice.
If you attended every class, you had a hint of what he thought was important. At night, I sat at the kitchen table of my New Moon mobile home, rereading the day’s material. I must have worn out a handful of blue-ink Bic pens underlining and scribbling in the margins.
(I just paused, again, and thumbed through the book’s 801 pages. The musty smell took me back to 1969 and UGA’s Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication.)
In those days, printer’s ink hadn’t flirted with my veins. But I figured a journalism degree would be a good springboard into law school. Little did I know that the bespectacled professor was helping to redirect my future.
He introduced me to John Peter Zenger, whose 1735 libel-trial victory continues to resonate today. While Zenger became a hero for free speech, it was his “Philadelphia lawyer,” Andrew Hamilton, who persuaded the court to free his client.
On page 745, I reread what textbook author Edwin Emery wrote: “The obligations of any newspaper to its community are to strive for honest and comprehensive coverage of the news, and for courageous expression of editorial opinion in support of basic principles of human liberty and social progress.”
That, readers of The Oglethorpe Echo, is why ink still courses through my veins.
I’m convinced — more than ever — that strong newspapers help to build strong communities. That is at the heart of why I asked Dean Charles Davis and the Grady College to join me in helping to save this newspaper. In 2021, I was hoping that you didn’t want to live in a community without a newspaper, either.
What you are reading at this moment is not the national media. We are your hometown newspaper. We are now in our 152nd year of serving Oglethorpe County’s readers and advertisers.
We sit next to you at church. We visit with you in the grocery store. We cheer with you at ballgames. We are neighbors. We hug your necks at funerals. And when you hurt, we hurt, too.
Within this edition, you’ll see 22 Grady College students who are eager to meet you and tell your stories. They are gaining real-life journalism experience in Dr. Amanda Bright’s capstone class. Editor Andy Johnston, another UGA professor, will mentor them, as they fill pages with need-to-know information and photographs.
I wish that I could have benefited from an “Echo experience.” I would have probably given up my courtroom ambition for the newsroom sooner. But I give credit to the cocksure professor for sparking an interest that morphed into a passion for journalism.
I’m now in my 54th year of telling the “who, what, when, where, why and how.”
And after all these years, I still savor the satisfaction of earning the top grade from a professor who said that he’d never given an A+. Without him, you probably wouldn’t be reading this.
Challenges.
I love them.
That’s why I am pleased the preppy professor taunted me to study harder and learn more about newspapers.
But most of all, I’m especially grateful for you: our readers, our advertisers and our donors.
Together, as neighbors, let’s keep the press (and digital platforms) rolling.
For more columns, visit dinknesmith.com.