Journalism and the First Amendment of Northeast Georgia 6A By Pat Kerley N ewspapers are serious business. It’s their purpose to report the important news and events that affect our lives. Even in an era when so much of our information is gleaned from television and over the Internet, we still reach for the newspaper for fuller, in-depth coverage of major events. Elections, tragedies, scan- dals…all serious stuff. And the people who put these newspapers together are hardworking, seri- ous people -- journalists who care deeply about accuracy and who are keenly aware of their respon- sibility. It’s true, too, that newspapers are a mirror of life. Along with world and national news, they tell the story of local politics, births, deaths, marriages, schools and all the areas that mark the opera- tion of a community. Newspapers are, at their core, a document of life. And if they are to fully re- flect that life, they have no choice but to contain some things that are not serious. Things that are, well, funny. Because life is funny. People are funny. I remember laughing a lot dur- ing my years as an editor at The Times of Gainesville. Sometimes the news itself was funny, espe- cially if you consider extraordi- nary vegetables news, which we did if they were funny enough. Who wouldn’t enjoy seeing a picture of a couple on a porch swing with their hands lovingly touching the enormous squash sitting between them? Or read- ing about a hen that went into the yard every day and stretched out on a rock so the sun would bake down on her stomach. (Or whatever you’d call the underside of a stretched-out chicken.) Sometimes the laughter was tinged with pain when it was caused by a typo or a composing room error. When I was at The Times stories were printed out in long strips, cut into pieces and placed on the pages with sticky wax. We tried to be especially careful to make sure nothing went awry and everything got waxed down in the proper place. Several people checked each “break,” which was supposed to assure accuracy but which actually helped spread the blame in case of a mistake. That’s why no one ever pled guilty to being responsible for the story of the mature bride who wore a floor- length gown and decorated the chapel with an eight-branched candelabra. But you have to admit that it was funny when the story ran in the paper revealing that she was radiant in a “floor- length bra.” Some newspaper humor is ful- ly intentional, meant to brighten the pages otherwise filled with serious business. One of my jobs during my years at The Times was to be funny in print -- and in public -- once a week. My essays, each just a few hundred words long, were scheduled to appear in the Family News section of the Sunday edition. Sound easy? Well, not so very. Some weeks nothing funny happened, but I always managed to come up with something without ever having to create it entirely. (Otherwise called lying.) Most weeks, however, I had more than enough material to come up with something funny. I had a family, I had children, I had pets, I had a car and appliances. How much more than that does a writer need? How about a class reunion where you try to stuff your post-partum body into an old Merry Widow waist cincher? How about a cat so stupid that she can’t tell the difference between her litter box and the air-return grid? How about Halloween, when you run out of candy and fresh fruit and start slipping Frosted Mini-Wheats into the Trick or Treat bags? Those weeks were the easy ones. The problem for me, or any humor columnist, is to be funny consistently. I never had a chance to talk with the best of the best, the late Erma Bombeck and Lew- is Grizzard, but they somehow kept up the quality of their work for years on end. They rarely missed, delivering columns that were tight, well-written and, of course, funny. I’d rewrite or heavily edit most of my columns if given the chance. Only a few still please me. The ones I liked most are the ones that would make me laugh or cry while I was typing them, and they tend to be the ones that are nostalgic or that mark one of life’s precious moments. If I had to choose one favorite, it would be about the first year we all opened gifts on Christmas Eve like grown-ups, with no Santa surprises saved for Christmas morning. I still cry when I read it. My favorites aren’t usually the ones that readers seem to have enjoyed the most. I never dreamed I’d get such a response to 300 words about cleaning out my refrigerator. And buying a bathing suit turned out to be a trauma that most grown women share, like childbirth and labor. Apparently, stories about childhood vacations in seedy motels with round TV screens touched a familiar chord. And lots of folks identified with grow- ing sick of summer’s bounty when you’ve snapped beans and peeled peaches until you’re ready to slip them in a plain brown wrapper and hide them in the garbage can under the water- melon rind. When you write about person- al things, I guess it’s inevitable that at some point you will offend someone. I did it by writing (for reasons I can’t imagine now) about “cotton-crotch pantyhose.” Apparently that phrase was tacky enough to cause a canceled subscription. Perhaps I should have written “cotton-crotch stockings.” Think that would have helped? Maybe not. It was a relief when I wrote my last column. I wasn’t sure there were any more of them left in me. But that was a long time ago, when I was still young. Who knew how funny it is to be old. When you’re old you know funny things that young people can’t even imagine. They don’t have a clue that the soothing sound of raindrops falling in the middle of the night work as well as a pre- scription diuretic. They’ve never known anyone who tried to snag a new husband by figuring out when he went to the pharmacy to get his meds refilled. They don’t know that a coupon for a free oil- change and a Chick-fil-A combo can make for a happy birthday. I’ve heard people say that printed newspapers are doomed. I hope they are wrong. There’s a satisfaction in pulling the paper out of its box, unfolding it, and shaking out the pages, that nothing else quite delivers. You can print out recipes and obits and things that make you laugh, but it’s not the same as clipping them from a newspaper page. Something about the process causes you to remember the things you’ve read. Even though it’s been a couple of decades since my last column appeared, I’m no longer surprised when people say to me, “I read your piece every Sunday.” It’s certainly better than, “I like your columns. Have you ever thought about being a writer?” That’s not funny. Pat Kerley for many years wrote a humor column for The Times of Gainesville. Humor in newspapers: Some of it is fully intentional By Phil Hudgins T he city council in my hometown lifted its ban on fortunetelling several years ago. Everybody saw it coming. The city no doubt foresaw a law- suit if the ban continued. After all, the state and courts have said psychic trades are legitimate. So the fortunetellers won, palms down. Thankfully or unfortunately, depend- ing on your degree of gullibility, fortune- tellers again will join the fight for the al- mighty dollar sought by the state lottery, telemarketers and pyramid pushers. I think I’ll take my chances and con- tinue my own personal ban. It’s easier and cheaper to flip a coin. Fortune tellers always make good newspaper stories. About 25 years ago, I interviewed a woman who claimed she could foresee the future and read my mind, which should have been easy reading. Describe my family, I said. She said I have a wife and two sons. Actually, I have a wife and two daughters. Well, she said, you’re going to have a son. Nope. But I do have a grandson now. If we were playing horsehoes, she’d score a latent leaner. Can you describe my living room? I asked. She gave it a whirl. She said it featured windows – and it did – but she missed the Early Holiday Inn décor alto- gether. No doubt her abilities to tell the future, if they existed at all, were in the past. Now let’s look at water dowsers. Do you believe their claims? I once interviewed a gentleman named Charlie Hammonds Patton, who said he could find underground water by holding a forked stick in both hands and walking around. When the tip of the stick pulled itself downward, he had found the water source. “It’ll work if you have enough electric- ity in you,” he said. A few years later, this nice man and his mysterious trade were the subjects of a class paper I wrote while on a univer- sity fellowship Up North. I read a lot from researchers into water dowsing. One of them said that believing in water dows- ing “necessitates a complete disregard of the basic principles of hydraulics, hydrol- ogy, meteorology, physics, thermodynam- ics and geology, and even the fundamen- tal laws of gravitation.” Mr. Patton would have said he didn’t know about all that stuff. All he knew was he could find underground water with a forked stick. You know, people like to believe things work rather than not work. It’s all in the ritual. Think of the “ritual” piped out on television: If a woman buys a certain face cream, she’ll be more beautiful. If a man drives a certain car, he’ll have to fight off the pretty women. If you go to Donald Trump’s seminar, you’ll get rich. People are looking for the quick fix: a short answer from a fortuneteller, a win- ning lottery ticket, someone to tell them what to do to make their lives better. Well, good luck on your next visit to Sister Sarah the Psychic. For a price, she’ll tell you what’ll happen. But don’t worry: It’s legit. The state says so. Phil Hudgins, a volunteer at the North- east Georgia History Center, is senior edi- tor of Community Newspapers Inc. The late Charlie Hammonds Patton of Banks County said he could find underground water with a forked stick. Fortunetellers make good stories, but usually not good predictions He must be the know-all of it all, the Alpha and Omega, the sum and substance of those things that are, have been and are to be. By Johnny Vardeman O ne of the many experts that enjoyed critiquing newspa- pers used to say there wasn’t enough humor in them. That despite the fact that news- papers devote a page or more to the funnies. And some material in newspapers might inspire a laugh even if that wasn’t the intention. Newspapers of old didn’t seem to take themselves so seriously, and you could find considerable humor in their columns. Those were the “anything-goes” days when libel laws were loose or editors didn’t pay them much attention. Many of today’s columnists pro- vide a bit of wit now and then. But editors way back then were fond of just telling jokes. Like this one in the Walton Tribune decades ago: A stranger entered the local church and sat on the back pew. As the sermon droned on, he asked an elderly gentleman next to him, “How long has he been preaching?” “Thirty or 40 years, I think,” came the reply. “I’ll stay then,” the visitor re- plied. “He must be nearly done.” Another editor told the story of a man who shot and killed his wife, then killed himself after they argued over who should read the lo- cal paper first. The editor suggested a law be passed requiring the head of every family subscribe for two papers. And, the editor added, they should be paid for in advance. Austin Dean, who once published the Gainesville Eagle, made a name for himself in Georgia journalism and in some national circles. He wryly expressed the frustration of editors in a column back in 1931, some of which is applicable today: Readers expect the editor to be a combination of sheriff and minister. His it is to ferret out crime, see the criminal captured, convicted and behind the bars. Then his it is to write evangelical editorials, which the prisoner is to read and become reformed. Readers expect the editor to play both sides against the middle, to be right always and to fail never in championing every cause, just because some want it. In politics, the editor is supposed to be infallible. In advocating principles, he is expected to be both sage and teacher, having the wisdom of Solomon, the shrewd- ness of Disraeli and the tutoring ability of Socrates. Let him fall short in any of these, and the readers would afflict him, like Solomon with multitudinous wives, like Disraeli with overcoming the antipathy of his race, and, like Socrates, condemn him to quaff the fatal hyslop. If an editor supports an issue objectionable to a certain group, they come in and cancel their sub- scriptions. If he does not, then those favoring it will stop the paper. If he is a Democrat, Republicans spurn him, and vice versa. If he is a church- goer, a civic leader and a booster, he is hied as a Babbitt; if he is not, he is called an atheist, a mossback and a chronic cynic. He must practice what he preaches or face the challenge of hypocrisy. No one believes him human like others, his little drink being more of a stimulant than an advocacy of anti-Volsteadism; maybe a means of forgetting the demands made upon him. He must be more charitable than a Community Chest. His pages must be open to this, that and the other free publicity, regardless of the cost to him. He must praise the most dastardly ne’er-do-well when he succumbs, he must actually paint the lily and perfume the rose, besides beautifying trash and embellishing nothingness. He must give sound business advice and write poetry; he must be both practical and artistic, aesthetic and commercial. He should be able to run a bank, try a case, preach a sermon, dig a ditch and indite a lyric. His knowledge of prize-fighting should not surpass his familiarity with dactylic and hexameters; he should be as good a surgeon as a woodsman. What he doesn’t know shouldn’t be known, and if known not published. He must be the know-all of it all, the Alpha and Omega, the sum and substance of those things that are, have been and are to be. It’s impossible, but who wouldn’t be an editor? It’s the only life. Johnny Vardeman is a retired edi- tor of The Times of Gainesville. He writes a weekly column on history for the newspaper. Life and humor of oldtime editors GRASS IS GREENER OVER THE (LOCAL) SEPTIC TANK It’s a fact most local people read local newspapers to get local news. They may expect state, national and international news from the dailies, but most subscribe to The Times in Gainesville and The Times in Ellijay to find out what’s going on in their com- munities. The same can be said for columns. If local columnists constantly delve into the war in Afghanistan or the mess in Wash- ington, readers likely will tire very easily. They can get that stuff from Charles Krauthammer and E.J. Dionne. For those who have a knack for writing humor – especially humor the average people can relate to – then humor normally is definitely better than the scoop on the latest bioenergy research in Washington. Remem- ber that, please, the next time you pick up a newspaper and read a local columnist: If he or she is writing about something local, something personal, something funny, even something sad, there’s a reason for that. Local news and opinions are local newspapers’ bread and butter.