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May 1990 • UGA: An Independent Look • Page 19
R&B takes criticism and
even gun-toting disgruntleds
By Mark Sheftall
Former Red and Black editor-in-
chief Jeff Turner will always
remember his last day as the top man
at the college newspaper.
"It was hell," he says.
The Red and Black had run a
cartoon by Mike Moreu that morning
in its Finals edition that was
generating hundreds of angry phone
calls from people who were offended by
it. "1 came in that morning and
someone had knocked over the
newsstand in front of the office,"
Turner said. "From the time 1 stepped
in the door to the time 1 went home
that night, I was answering phone
calls."
Also on that day in June 1989,
Turner had to deal with a Chinese
student who was bothered by an
article which he felt accused him of
being a spy for the Chinese
government. "This was just after the
Tiananmen Square massacre," Turner
said. "Things were pretty tense in the
Chinese community on campus."
Unfortunately, the worried Chinese
student did not speak much English,
and Turner spoke no Chinese. "We
spent over an hour just trying to
communicate," Turner said. "It was a
very frustrating experience."
Frustration is a feeling editors at
The Red and Black know well when it
comes to dealing with complaints from
disgruntled readers and sources. The
student paper has often found itself at
the center of controversy and on the
receiving end of a lot of reader anger
due to errors in fact or judgment
inherent in a daily newspaper
produced by amateurs.
Lauran Neergaard, a former Red
and Black editor-in-chief, remembers
when Charlita Stephens became the
University's first black homecoming
queen in 1987 and The Red and Black
was unable to get a picture of her
because the staff photographer was
out of position.
Neergaard said that when the
photo-less story ran, many blacks at
the University were outraged. "They
thought we didn't run a picture of
(Stephens) because she is black,"
Neergaard said. This
misunderstanding hurt The Red and
Black's reputation among black
students for a long time, Neergaard
says.
Even journalism school deans do not
always have kind things to say about
the Red and Black. Chuck Reece, who
edited the paper during the fall of 1982
and the Winter of 1983, remembers
when Scott Cutlip, former dean of the
University's journalism school, called
him into his office to talk about a series
of editorials by staffer Nelson Ross.
"Ross had been calling for (former
University president Fred) Davison's
resignation," Reece said. "In fact he
holds the record for the most editorial
page calls for Davison's resignation
with 11."
Reece said Cutlip saw him walking
to class one day and asked if he had a
minute to talk. "When I got into his
office, Cutlip, who was a friend of
Davison's, went into this spiel about
how Davison was one of the finest
presidents we've ever had," Reece said.
Then, banging his desk for emphasis,
Cutlip asked Reece how he could let
Ross keep beating "the same f g
drum" by calling for Davison's
resignation.
Of course, sometimes encounters
between The Red and Black and its
public can get downright weird. For
instance, Neergaard remembers the
time in the fall of '87 when she had a
run-in with a gun-toting Athens
resident.
Neergaard said she was downstairs
at The Red and Black office when
Mayo Newton, a man known for such
eccentricities as coming to Athens city
council meetings in a Confederate
uniform, walked through the door.
"He asked to speak to an editor,"
Neergard says. "When I told him I was
the managing editor he said he wanted
to speak to a male editor."
Neergaard said Newton then pulled
a pistol out of his coat and announced
he was holding the gun he would use
when he challenged Senator Wyche
Fowler to a duel.
"I got kind of scared at this point,
and I called upstairs for one the male
editors but none of them would come
down," she says. Meanwhile, the boys
upstairs had called the police, but
Newton made his exit before they
arrived, she says. Newton never did
get a chance to duel Sen. Fowler. He
was arrested a few days after the
incident for waving a pistol at the
principal of Cedar Shoals High School.
Mark Sheftall is a former opinions
editor for The Red and Black.
"The negotiations at that time were delicate
because we were dealing with an 87-year old entity,"
says Russell. Indeed, the committee spent more than a
year and a half meeting regularly, studying other
independent newspapers like The Alligator, and
devising guidelines for the split. Much like a divorce,
the financial terms of the agreement proved to be the
stickiest. However, Cochran says the committee did its
best to provide The Red and Black with a secure
financial future, while working with the resources of a
state institution, which could not be just given away.
Even with the committee's hard work, many
people, like Dean Tate, suspected the University
administration was setting up the paper for failure,
and the perception grew that Fred Davison was ready
to pluck The Red and Black from campus like a thorn
from his side. John English, a journalism professor for
the past 20 years, says he and many of the journalism
professors initially resisted the separation, which they
thought was being done too hastily.
"The main concern was that the president of the
University wanted to get rid of the paper because he
was annoyed with it because it was kicking his butt,"
English says.
While Davison concedes that he "never really
courted the press," he dismisses the implication that
he wanted the paper to wither away with an "Oh
heavens no."
"The opposition that we met was more a matter of
perception about what was going on," Cochran says. "I
was asked by many people, 'Are you setting the paper
up for failure?' "
In February 1980, when the University System
Board of Regents discussed President Davison's
request to have The Red and Black leave campus, the
issue was tabled until the regents could do their own
study. The move provoked a statewide debate on the
separation. The issue struck at the hearts of many
Georgia journalists, some of whom were former staff
members of The Red and Black.
"That one got very emotional," says Tom
McDonald, the system's vice chancellor for Student
Services. 'There were a lot of editorials written all
around the state."
The regents gave approval to the separation at
their May 13-14 meeting that year, McDonald says,
but with a list of further stipulations to ensure The
Red and Black's financial potency. By that time The
Red and Black had already moved off campus to its
downtown offices, but it did not officially start
financially supporting itself until that fall.
While The Red and Black is fueled by its student
workers in both the advertising and editorial
departments, the full-time professional position of
general manager was set up to provide consistency
amid the chaos of an ever-changing student staff.
Later, the professional positions of advertising and
production managers were instated for the same
reason. A non-paid Board of Directors, made up of a
variety of professionals, makes many of the business
decisions for the paper.
The fact that The Red and Black celebrates its
10th year of independence this year is a testimony not
only to the planning of the special committee to study
its independence, but to the hard work of all the
student staffs and their supporters.
Susan Hill is a former news editor for The Red and
Black.