(Patterson photo column)
There have been many of you that have expressed very strong
opinions about the photo that accompanied the story on the front page of last
Friday’s Clarksdale Press-Register. The photo was of homicide victim Gary
Patterson, taken from about 50 yards away. Patterson’s legs and lower arm were
visible, and the rest of the body was concealed by grass.
We understand why some found the photo jarring. It is our
editorial judgment that it is a newsworthy photograph that shows the result and
the impact of the violence that too regularly rears its ugly head in our
community. The photo, although certainly a strong, emotion-evoking image, is
solid newspaper work.
We are not a tabloid, looking for shock value. We are a
community newspaper that is tasked with the sometimes unpleasant assignment of
holding a mirror up to Clarksdale and Coahoma County. The reflection isn’t
always a pretty one, no matter how much I wish it were. It is our hope that
maybe some were affected strongly enough by the photo to begin doing more to
help bring the crime problem in Clarksdale under control. The Sheriff’s Office
and Clarksdale Police Department are not the only ones responsible for helping
keep our neighborhoods safe. It will take the combined efforts of every
law-abiding citizen getting together to root out the cancer that is eating at
the very heart of our community.
And now, another murder. My heart goes out not only to the
Messenger family and their friends, but to everyone who has been touched by
such senseless evil. My heart goes out to our community. I’ll gladly suffer the
slings and arrows of those who disagree with CPR editorial policy if it causes
enough people to stand up to the real issue - gangs and the drug trade. We
don’t have to live like this.
Emmerich Newspapers listened to the community when you said
that you wanted “someone from around here” to run the CPR. The responsibility
for the content of this publication is mine, and mine alone. I have no interest
in either sensationalizing or soft-selling anything that goes on. I have one
responsibility, and that is to provide the most accurate, timely, and relevant
information possible to my hometown in order for the readers of this newspaper
to make informed decisions about their community. I am fortunate to have a
staff that is dedicated to the highest standards of journalism. Our only agenda
is to present to you the most complete story possible about the things that
happen here.
CPR Managing Editor Jesse Wright covered the discovery of
Patterson’s body, and is leading our coverage as details about Mrs. Messenger’s
death are brought to light. I trust Jesse to uncover any and all verifiable
facts about these cases, as well as about the Lewelling double-homicide from
two weeks ago. We will keep you apprised of all developments in these
cases, and hopefully justice will be swift in each.
As Jesse notes in his column below, we have been subjected
to unsettling, emotionally-charged images in the media for generations. But
these images are reality. It is never our intention to be disrespectful of
anyone, be they victims, survivors, or innocent bystanders. And it is never our
intention to be disrespectful or condescending to our readers. You deserve the
truth.
(April Fool’s Day column)
Happy April Fool’s Day!
I have to admit that the juvenile in me has never grown
bored with the idea of April Fool’s Day. It’s the one day a year when hoaxes, deceptions
and elaborate contrivances are perpetrated with gleeful abandon with little to
no thought of recriminations or consequences. In this post-Johnny Knoxville
world where practical joking has become a career for hundreds of internet and
cable TV personalities, April Fool’s Day is still the Super Bowl Sunday of
gags, jokes, and good-spirited maliciousness.
It’s all in good fun.
The roots of April Fool’s Day are hard to trace. Some say
that the practice stems from the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in Europe,
but there are many holes in this theory. April Fool’s Day is observed around
the world, but no one is sure why. Practices include sending people on fool’s
errands, like the ubiquitous “snipe hunt.” In the casinos of Tunica County,
newbie roulette dealers were often sent to a neighboring casino to borrow the
“wheel crank.” One poor fellow was sent to four different casinos before he
figured out what was going on. Construction crew rookies have spent hours
looking for board stretchers, striped paint, hammer grease and other such
foolishness.
One of my favorite pranks was actually about the origins of
the day and perpetrated on none other than the august Associated Press. In
1983, Boston University history professor Joseph Boskin claimed to have traced
the holiday back to Constantine. According to Boskin, a group of court jesters
declared to the emperor that they could do a better job of running the country
than he could, so Constantine nominated one of their number to be king for a
day. The jester passed an edict calling for frivolity and absurdity to be
celebrated on that day, and the custom stuck. A great story, but absolutely
made-up. Boskin was able to fool the AP and other media outlets for several
weeks before the hoax was uncovered.
Media outlets themselves have been the instigators of
several well-known pranks over the years, and more than a few journalists have
lost their jobs over ill-conceived April Fool’s Day antics. Homer Cilley,
former executive producer for Boston television station WNAC-TV was fired by
the station for "his failure to exercise good news judgment" in the
wake of a story that claimed that Great Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts was
erupting on April Fool’s Day in 1980. The stunt caused a panic in Milton, and residents
began to flee their homes.
The April 1995 issue of Discover magazine reported that
biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had found a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded
naked ice borer. These fascinating creatures had bony plates on their heads
that, fed by numerous blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing the
animals to bore through ice at high speeds. They used this ability to hunt
penguins, melting the ice beneath the penguins and causing them to sink into
the resulting slush where they would be consumed by the hotheads. After much
research, Dr. Pazzo theorized that the hotheads might have been responsible for
the mysterious disappearance of noted Antarctic explorer Philippe Poisson in
1837. "To the ice borers, he would have looked like a penguin," the article
quoted her as saying. Discover received more mail in response to this article
than they had received for any other article in their history.
In 1957, the BBC ran a story dubbed “the Swiss spaghetti
harvest,” claiming that the vile spaghetti weevil had finally been eradicated
and that Swiss spaghetti trees were yielding record amounts. Reportedly, large
numbers of people contacted the BBC to find out where they could purchase a
spaghetti tree. CNN would go on to call the event “the biggest hoax that any
reputable news establishment ever pulled.”
Other famous media pranks such as the Daily Mirror’s story
about a romance between Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev and a Sports
Illustrated tale of Sidd Finch, the Tibetan monk with a 168 mph fastball have
duped large segments of the public. In the days before the proliferation of
satirical news websites such as The Onion, National Report and others of that
ilk, these types of stories were met with incredulity, but the outlets were
trusted enough to cause many readers and viewers to fall for the prank.
The Clarksdale Press-Register would never do that to
you.
Even though there have been headlines recently that might
sound like the beginning of a bad joke, we are not in the business of making
fun of anyone, particularly our readers. You are the salt of the earth and the
reason we get up and go to work every day, and we wouldn’t ever jeopardize the trust
you have placed in us. Even when the news is comic, we will report it with a
straight face. There is always the possibility that when our politicians say or
do something hilarious, that they are not joking.
(farmers column)
We spend a lot of ink in this paper talking about tourism
and the “creative economy” and new, out-of-the-box ways to stimulate progress
and development in Clarksdale and Coahoma County. We lament the loss of
industrial and farming jobs, and the effect that has had on the area. And while
we have made great strides in new ways to bring dollars into our community, and
several new industrial jobs have been created in recent months, it bears
remembering that farming is still the backbone of our economy, and that is not
something that is going to change.
The Mississippi Delta has been one of the most productive
farming regions in the world since the first Native Americans began growing
corn along the Mississippi River. The accounts of the area are still reconciled
against the ledgers of the farmers, and they bring millions of dollars into our
community each year. Even with mechanization taking many jobs over the last
several decades, there are still thousands of people in Coahoma County directly
employed on farms, and thousands more who work in support industries that
depend on farmers for their business.
The Delta has been a laboratory for innovations in the
farming industry that have changed the way farming is done all over the world.
Area farmers have long worked hand-in-hand with chemical and equipment
manufacturers to develop new and more efficient procedures. These advances have
led to greater environmental stewardship and increased yield potential as the
agriculture industry has risen to meet the global food and fiber demand. Many
of the technological innovations that originated on a farm have transitioned
from the field into other sectors of industry. Coahoma County farmers have been
on the cutting edge of technological development since the first mechanized
crop was harvested at Hopson Plantation.
While technology has made it possible for a small handful of
people to operate a farm that used to take several dozen, jobs have been
created that farmers in the 70’s and 80’s would have never imagined. While
there are now tractors that can drive themselves, it took a large number of
people to develop the technology that makes that happen, and to sell and
service the equipment.
Advances in seed varieties have reduced the amount of
chemicals that farmers must apply during a season, but chemical retailers have
adapted by offering services such as soil sampling and analysis, application of
variable rate fertilizer technologies, and field mapping in order to provide
farmers with tools they need to be more productive. Irrigation methods have
evolved to mitigate the threat of droughts to the highest degree possible, and
water conservation methods are becoming more efficient with each new
development. There may not be as many people actually out in the field as there
once were, but farm related jobs are still the engine that drives our local
economy.
Our farmers guide agricultural policy at the state and
federal level, through organizations like the Delta Council and the National
Cotton Council. The input of Coahoma County farmers carries a lot of weight in
Jackson and Washington, and we are fortunate that they have the degree of
influence that they do. Given the way that the political climate fluctuates, it
is reassuring to know that we have friends and neighbors looking out for the
interests of the area in the halls of power. Agriculture has taken some severe
hits in the federal budget, but we have people that are constantly working to
get farmers the best deal possible from the politicians so that they can bring
more money back to our local coffers.
The money that farmers bring into Clarksdale and Coahoma
County winds up in the cash registers of every business in the area. They
support our schools, our hospital, our philanthropies and our churches. They
pay exorbitant taxes that are used for everything from roads, bridges and
sewers to after-school programs, youth sports leagues and museums. It is
impossible to overstate the importance of agriculture to the quality of life in
our community. And with any luck, things will dry up soon so these guys can get
into the field and carry on with the work of feeding and clothing the world.
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