Newspaper Page Text
Wednesday, October 19,2022
dawsonnews.com I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I 3A
FROM 1A
Baggs
an adviser.
“I’ve worked too hard and too long to
just stop,” Baggs said during a break
recently from cleaning out his office,
with newspapers and books stacked in
different places. “I’ll just be slowing
down a little.”
His journalism career began while in
high school in Forsyth County, where
he crafted his first story 52 years ago.
He went to college for a couple of years
— where he didn’t graduate or even
take a journalism class — before con
tinuing on in newspapers in Blue Ridge,
Blackshear and eventually his first
daily, Gwinnett County. The ensuing
years found him working in Hall and
Forsyth counties.
When the Gwinnett Daily News
closed in 1992, Baggs was the founding
editor for what is now the Gwinnett
Daily Post. He later joined Morris
Multimedia Inc., which acquired The
Times in 2004 from Gannett.
“I’ve been working out here since
then, still staying involved with
Dawsonville, Forsyth and Winder until
we sold it a few years ago,” he said.
Baggs, 67, was at The Times in
Gainesville when Metro Market Media
acquired the paper in 2018, along with
Forsyth County News and Dawson
County News.
“Probably the most difficult and tur
bulent time of my career was in 1987
during the civil rights marches and
white supremacy protests in Forsyth
County,” he said. “I was publisher of
the Forsyth County News at the time. I
had been involved in covering civil
rights marches and had written exten
sively about the Klan before, but what
transpired over about a six-week period
in ‘87 was unlike anything any of us
had dealt with.
“We tried to help keep local residents
safe and calm during a time when our
entire community was under scrutiny
by news agencies nationally and inter
nationally, while at the same time giv
ing events the coverage they deserved
and keeping our own staffers safe. It
was a tough time, and the fallout lasted
for years.”
Baggs has interviewed many notable
people over the years, such as Jimmy
Carter when he ran for president and
several Georgia governors.
One of the most memorable wasn’t a
power broker or politician but a woman
whose family worked at one of the aris
tocratic homes on Jekyll Island.
“She grew up in this house where all
these super-rich people came for balls
and banquets, and she had pictures and
stories,” Baggs said. “It was probably
the most enjoyable interview I ever
did.”
In another memorable moment, not
related to a story, Baggs recalled a
newspaper feud with the local sheriff
that resulted in the sheriff “exercising a
lien and seizing a bunch of our equip
ment.”
“I was sitting at the post office
unloading papers and got a call ... to
take the company truck and drive it
across the state line so the sheriff
couldn’t get it,” Baggs said. “I sat over
there for six hours until someone came
and told me what was going on.
“Those kinds of things,” he added
with a chuckle, “kind of resonate with
you.”
Reflecting more somberly, Baggs said
he believes his career is slowing on one
particular down note.
“In my first job, I was writing about
racial unrest and racial problems,”
Baggs said. “I kept thinking we’d quit
writing those kinds of stories, and we
still are. It’s just disappointing that
hasn’t resolved itself.”
Born in Blackshear, Baggs grew up in
Forsyth County and now lives in Sugar
Hill. He has seen much change in the
communities he’s covered through his
‘I always talk about newspapers being the string that
holds communities together and when that string
breaks, there’s nothing to hold it all together.’
Norman Baggs, Dawson County News general manager
career.
“Every place I’ve been on the north-
side of Atlanta, what Forsyth has done,
what Gwinnett has done and what Hall
is now doing, it’s been a pretty remark
able place to be during all that,” he said.
One of the most significant moments
in Baggs’ career was watching as the
Gwinnett Daily News, a longtime insti
tution, was closed by its owner, the
New York Times.
“It taught me how valuable a newspa
per is to a community and the negative
effects of having one close down,” he
said. “I always talk about newspapers
being the string that holds communities
together and when that string breaks,
there’s nothing to hold it all together.”
Recent years haven’t been kind to
local newspapers as advertising dollars
have eroded and readers have turned to
social media.
“The business model has been turned
completely upside down by the digital
world, especially in the last six or eight
years,” Baggs said. “Whereas newspa
pers once depended on advertising for
their revenue streams so they could stay
in business, that advertising has by and
large disappeared as result of digital
changes.
“So now, they have to depend more
on people paying for the content they
produce, and that’s been a very hard
metamorphosis for the industry. A lot of
papers haven’t been able to make that
switch.”
Studies have shown that in communi
ties without newspapers — dubbed as
“news deserts” — “local taxes go up,
government malfeasance goes up,”
Baggs said. “People just don’t know
what’s going on around them and
there’s no real way for them to find out.
“Much of that internet information,
on the news side, begins with a local
newspaper somewhere,” he said.
“Places like Facebook and Twitter don’t
employ reporters.”
Baggs “really believes in local jour
nalism, that every community deserves
to have a newspaper and a voice that
speaks up for the people and keeps gov
ernment officials and others in power
under watch by an independent group,”
said John Vardeman, president of
Morton, Vardeman & Carlson, a
Gainesville public relations firm.
“He’s always believed in that and
always stood up for what is right.”
Baggs drew tributes from others in
the community, especially colleagues,
current and former.
Charles Hill Morris Jr., president and
CEO of Metro Market Media, said
Baggs “has been incredibly helpful to
the industry, to our organization. He’s
always the coolest head in the room and
when he speaks, his comments are
always on mark. He surveys the situa
tion and always draws the correct con
clusion.”
Referring to the Forsyth racial ten
sions, Morris said, “He had a heavy
burden at a young age and handled it
very well despite very challenging cir
cumstances.”
Stephanie Woody, Dawson County
News’ publisher, said, “Norman has
been an instrumental leader in our orga
nization and industry for many years.
There really aren’t any words that
would express how appreciative I am
for his willingness to teach me along
the way and how much his leadership
has meant to me. There is no doubt that
his presence will be missed in our
building each day.”
Former Times publisher Dennis
Stockton, who has known Baggs for
30-plus years and worked directly with
him for 15 years, described him as “the
most balanced, common sense editorial
person I have ever had the pleasure (to
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work with). We are truly losing an asset
in the community. ”
Johnny Vardeman, retired editor of
The Times, described Baggs as “an
honest journalist who always puts the
newspaper reader first.
“He is a hard-working man of integri
ty and deserves his retirement from the
daily grind of deadlines and pressure
that comes with the territory after many
years laboring in the trenches as well as
in leadership roles. Fellow journalists
and readers wish him godspeed.”
Here are other comments from com
munity leaders:
Hall County Schools Superintendent
Will Schofield: “Norm has proven to be
one of the true journalists I have been
blessed to work with in my career. No
surprises, no spin, candor in a kind and
approachable manner. He will be deep
ly missed, and our media world could
learn a lot of wisdom from my friend.”
Kit Dunlap, Greater Hall Chamber of
Commerce president and CEO:
“Norman has quietly meant so much to
The Times and held it together during
the fruit basket turnover in the news
media — in the media, period. He may
be short on a whole lot of words, which
is wonderful. He just tells it like it is.”
State Sen. Butch Miller,
R-Gainesville: “Norman Baggs has pro
vided stability, wisdom, discernment,
compassion and judgment to The Times
and community for as long as I’ve
known him. I’m particularly grateful for
his journalistic work in the field of fos
ter care and grateful for his work in the
area of public policy.”
Miller also joked about Baggs’ trade
mark flowing beard.
“He’s still a cross between Santa Claus
and Jerry Garcia,” he said, laughing.
Baggs has a story about that, as well.
“In 1976, everybody and their brother
was growing a beard because of the
nation’s bicentennial,” he said. “I did
not. After the Fourth of July that year,
when everybody shaved their beards off,
I started mine and have had it ever since.
It’s been long, it’s been short, it was
black, now it’s white, but it’s been
there.”
And now as he takes his leave from
“an adventure that started a long time
ago with a typewriter”:
“I’ll still be working, still will be
involved and know what’s going on,” he
said. “I’m looking forward to it. I’ve got
great-grandbabies to spoil, family to take
care of and things to do.”
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