News - Columnists - Bill Minor

Friday, Nov. 06, 2009

Death of Jack Nelson took one of journalism’s best

JACKSON -- It is becoming apparent to many Americans in this high-tech era of the Internet, blogs, iPods, 24/7 cable “news” channels — and now, the biggest economic downturn in 70 years — that print journalism, namely newspapers, is becoming an endangered species.

To the great detriment of America’s democracy, we are seeing a steady disappearance of professional journalists — the digging reporters — either as a result of economic cutbacks from shrinking advertising revenues, or by deaths.

Two weeks ago, we lost to cancer at age 80 one of the really great ones — Jack Nelson, the ex-Mississippian who went on to build a remarkable 62-year career as a tough, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter and long a fixture on Public Broadcasting’s “Washington Week in Review.”

To me, Jack’s death brought deep personal loss. From his days as an 18-year-old cub reporter — right out of high school — for the old Daily Herald of Biloxi, I considered him one of “my boys” and I was honored that he referred to me as his mentor. That began in my early days 60 years ago as Mississippi correspondent for The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune. Although based in Jackson, I often covered conventions of state or national organizations invariably held on the Gulf Coast (civil rights had not yet become the dominant Mississippi news story) and I took Jack under my wing when we showed up to cover the same event.

Though I was not too much older than he, I had a college degree in journalism and World War II service under my belt, and Jack, as an eager, aspiring newsman, would ask me “What’s the lead?” on stories we were covering.

Once I tricked him into ignoring an outrageous statement that wily old U.S. Sen. Jim Eastland offhandedly tossed off at the state convention of county supervisors. Next morning, when my T-P story lead was far different than his, he accosted me about it. “Oh, didn’t I tell you about that?” I joked. Nonetheless, we remained lifelong dear friends.

After a short Army stint, Nelson resumed his news reporter track by landing a job on the Atlanta Constitution. He quickly burnished his reputation as a hard-hitting investigative reporter, uncovering local corruption and exposing unconscionable abuses in a state mental hospital. In 1960 won a Pulitzer for local reporting.

When the Los Angeles Times five years later opened its first Southern bureau in Atlanta and gave him the assignment, it was the start of Nelson’s decade-long career as a premier civil rights reporter. His talent for detail became focused on the explosive struggle by African-Americans all over the South. Soon, he became the Times’ bureau chief in Washington.