An online food fight has developed over Bill Minor's legacy. The noted journalist and columnist died earlier this week at the age of 94. Accolades were thrown his way as many honored him. The Clarion-Ledger's Jerry Mitchell called him a "model of journalism" and remembered his life:
Known as “the conscience of Mississippi,” the 94-year-old Minor wound up outliving nearly all of his contemporaries as well as a number of the journalists he mentored. He died at 1:46 a.m. Tuesday.However, former political operative and journalist Wayne Weidie took issue with Mr. Mitchell's memorium of Bill Minor on the pages of his blog:
The son of a newspaper linotype operator in Louisiana and a lifelong Democrat, Minor viewed himself as a champion for the little guy.
Minor fought for much of his life, serving as a gunnery officer on the USS Stephen Potter in World War II. "The Japanese never hit us with bombs or torpedoes, but they came mighty close," Minor recalled in a 2003 interview with The Clarion-Ledger. "There were kamikazes toward the end, which were almost impossible to stop."....
Minor began working out of an office in the state Capitol along with other reporters. Unlike some of those reporters, he wasn’t content to rewrite press releases that came from politicians.
Instead, he did his own reporting, exposing the dark deeds he witnessed to the light, which hardly made him popular beneath the Capitol dome. Some of the politicians he wrote about, including state Sen. Bill Burgin, went to prison.
Minor worked as a stringer for The New York Times and Newsweek, working closely with some of the nation’s top reporters, such as Claude Sitton (who later remarked that Minor had done more for civil rights than any Southern newspaperman).
The Times-Picayune correspondent covered the 1955 trial of Emmett Till's killers. An all-white jury acquitted the two white men, who confessed months later to Look magazine that they had beaten and killed Till.
Many of the national reporters who came to report on what was happening in Mississippi made sure they talked first to Minor.
In the years that followed, he covered the burgeoning civil rights movement and came to know its top leaders, including Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers, who was assassinated outside his Jackson home on June 12, 1963....
Minor became a mentor for many young reporters, including Pulitzer Prize winners Klibanoff, David Halberstam and Jack Nelson.
Halberstam, whose first journalism job was in West Point, told The Clarion-Ledger before his 2007 death, "People who are saying there aren't any heroes anymore just aren't looking in the right places. (Bill Minor is) an example of real conscience and integrity.”
Before his 2009 death from cancer, Nelson said of Minor: “I’ve never known a more courageous journalist.”... Rest of article.
I was sad to hear of his death, and there is no question Minor made many contributions to Mississippi during his long career. After someone texted me Tuesday morning about Minor’s death, I went to the Clarion-Ledger online edition where I saw the headline on reporter Jerry Mitchell’s story. The headline was, “Bill Minor remembered as a model for journalists.” From my perspective, I would never consider Minor as a “model for journalists.”....
Thirty or forty years ago, it was the norm for candidates for major office the state to close their campaign with an hour or 30 minutes TV special. William Winter was a candidate for governor at the time and his election eve special was a bogus, staged press conference. Minor was a participant and helped orchestrate the paid campaign ad for William Winter. Again, not very objective journalism or good journalism.
Eventually I moved on to Washington, D. C. Shortly after I moved, Minor was honored with a prestigious national award. Along with then Congressman Gene Taylor and Taylor’s press secretary, I attended the award luncheon. The attendees was like a Who’s Who of prominent political and journalism figures. Speaker after speaker, including a member of the Kennedy family, spoke in praise of Minor and his contributions to Mississippi. Almost every speaker noted the role Minor had played and how much Mississippi had changed from its terrible days of segregation and racial violence. When it came time for Minor to speak, the first words out of his mouth was that the state had not really changed.
At a later date, Minor wrote a nasty column about Jamie Whitten, the powerful and long serving chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Working in the U.S. House of Representatives at the time, I knew Minor’s column about the very respected Whitten was not close to being factually correct. At an inaugural ball when Bill Clinton was elected president, I ran into Minor when my daughter and I entered the event. My timing was not good, but I promptly told him his nasty column about Whitten was uncalled for and was not even close to the facts. Minor did make major contributions in his reporting of political corruption in the state. However, he never mentioned the corruption of his wealthy, trial lawyer son, Paul Minor. Paul Minor was convicted and served time in federal prison for bribery.
The stories about Minor’s death also mentioned his tenure as editor of the weekly Capital Reporter in Jackson. What most people do not know is that a newspaper publisher in the state loaned Minor a significant sum of money to start the newspaper. Minor never made any effort to repay the loan. When I returned to Mississippi after more than 18 years in Washington, Minor was still frequently spewing hate in his column....Rest of post.
fter the newspaper’s headline calling Minor a “model for journalism”, the print edition of the Clarion-Ledger had a big front page headline calling Minor “The Conscience of Mississippi.” No, I regret that Minor passed and appreciate the many contributions he made to our state, but he was neither a “model for journalism” nor the “conscience of Mississippi.” R. I. P.
Kingfish note: Two diametrically opposed opinions . Bill Minor had one thing lacking in many reporters today- guts. The men who now call themselves reporters are all too often pretty boys who look more comfortable getting a manicure then getting their hands dirty literally digging up a story. He could be a bastard but that's what it took sometimes to cover the stories he reported. Combat is a forge of sorts. Mr. Minor saw death on a regular basis in the Pacific. The horrors of war served him well when he had to face the horrors of home when he covered the civil rights struggles. There was some damn good reporting in the Capitol Reporter. JJ will probably reprint some of the Ed Peters stories. However, somewhere along the way, Mr. Minor became a very bitter person. His columns became attacks. Crucial facts were omitted and woe to any writer who dared criticize his column. His responses were written with acid as age focused the bitterness more and more.
He stood for something and didn't back down. That should probably be his legacy.
48 comments:
Bill Minor might have had guts for the first 20 or so years of his professional career, KF. But after that, all Minor did was spew the stuff that comes out of guts and called his niased, untruthful writing as journalism. He was not a gutsy joirnalist, he was a paid for hack.
Over the years, I have written several editorials responding to Bill's Bull Shit.
I was not a fan but I am saddened at his death.
"His responses were written with acid as age focused the bitterness more and more."
damn, that's a powerful line.
RIP, Mr. Minor. I knew more of the last 25 years than the early years, and so related more to the sentence mentioned, but I respected the force behind the pen nonetheless.
I have only been reading Minor's stuff for 12 years or so, and I apparently missed his glory days. I rarely, if ever, agreed with a word that he wrote, but I read the columns. I think most journalists want to change the world, and eventually they figure out that it's okay if they can just get people to read what they write. Bill Minor was able to do that, in my case without having to like the guy, so I'd say he had a life well lived. RIP, you crusty old fart.
WOW !!!!!!!!! 10:35, that was a great line and how true it is.
Minor's legacy should be split. As a news reporter, he was one thing. As a columnist, which is what most people remember him for, he was something else entirely. As a news reporter, he was brave. As a columnist he was unafraid, but he was also mean-spirited and the last decade of his/Inman's writing (yes he had a lot of help) was more a caricature of itself. Crazy and bitter for the sake of being crazy and bitter.
I only read Minor for the last 25 years. He seemed to haver distilled with age and it was not something most could drink smoothly. Every once in a while, he'd recount (without much editorialization) a story from long ago and it was good work that only a good reporter or insider would have known. I'm thankful for those insights.
For the last 25 years, Minor has been nothing but a Leftist partisan. He's no part of a journalist, and the same can be said for Jerry Mitchell.
Minor was a hateful man with a judge-bribing convict for a son.
He got old. Old people don't have a governor on their mouth. Throw out the last 20-25 years in judging him.
Every time I saw one of his columns, I turned the page or clicked away as quickly as I could. It was all a racial thing with him. Hated that he could not get beyond showing the race card EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. And of course, the Clarion Ledger ate it up. Their newest racist columnist, Rachel James-Terry, seems to be picking up where he left off.
Minor was a journalist only in the sane sense that Brietbart is journalism. During the past four decades facts, much less truth, was never an issue to the SOB. Sorry, I don't care if he rests in peace or not. Having been the subjet of his written crap I am just glad he is resting niw. Actually, i believe ge has been resting for several years now with his corrupt son doing the work from his jail cell..
Minor started his career trying to expose, and if possible root out corruption in state politics. But if a barrister buying off judges in order to become a drunk multimillionaire is not corruption, I don't know what qualifies. But because those activities did not involve somebody with an 'R' by their namd, it never reached Minor's 'journalistic, beave, gutsy'career.
Rest, Mr Minor.
Minor was no different than any other journalist. He was not a volunteer, but rather an employee of a company that makes money by publishing stories that draw people in. Thus, the goal is not the truth. The goal is more readers whether they are reading because they love you or hate you. A reader will read every piece written by someone they dislike so they can raise hell. Journalists write "stories" and are fueled by the same things as everyone else, money and recognition. As such, I disagree anytime we try to enshrine some journalist as if he/she has been doing volunteer mission work for widows and orphans his/her entire life.
1:22, you little Bastard, you will be there one day. I bet you don't spout that kind of shit to your parents. NO GOVERNOR ON MY MOUTH EITHER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Speaking as a 74 year old.!!!
1:47, I am there today, almost. Close enough that I can see and smell it. But I don't buy ink by the gallon to lie and smear people that I disagree with.
Yes I do disagree with many folks. But I don't print stuff that I know is an outright lie just to sell a column and promote a personal opinion.
I am proud of Weidie for calling this bastard out.
Minor was a courageous young man with some talent but he transitioned into an old embittered man who despised anything and everything to do with Mississippi. He was the literary embodiment of what they said about LBJ....He hated his friends and despised his enemies. The only good thing you can say about his last years is that he worked cheap.
He had a real issue, at least in his later years, of being able to get basic facts and context straight. I once talked to him about what was a fairly non-controversial issue around 2009 or so, but his final piece was full of misstated facts and conclusions of which he never asked the first question pertaining to emphasis, edification or clarification when we were on the phone. I realize that opinion writing gives you room for some of that predetermined approach, but there are certain facts that are undisputed i.e.grass is green, sky is blue, from which to form the opinion. He really was permenantly fixed in his prime era, 50s and. 60s, and he never seemed to advance beyond those days. Everything he wrote seemed viewed through the prism of 50 years ago, with virtually no alnowledgement of Mississippi's progress beyond that. I know a coupe of editors that wouldn't run his stuff anymore because it was in such a time warp. But he deserves credit for sure for his early work. It's a stretch to characterize him as a sort of journalistic deity, however. Finally he seemed to portray anyone associated with the Republican Party as racist, while simultaneously heaving generous apologies for Dems, even the old segregationist ones. Guilt by association entirely. He would have been more effective as a journalist and even opinion writer if he had not been so utterly partisan and predictable on his approach to almost any topic. His work was important early on, but his columns in later years were hardly thought provoking or anything that would compel one to rethink their own perspective.
Reading all of these negative comments has made my week end on a positive note. I began reading his work after moving to MS in the mid 90's and quickly learned to dislike Minor. I can't recall a columnist ever that I despised more. I sent several letters to him and never got a response to defend himself, and yes, you had to send letters because he was so stuck in the past he never would get an email address. I attempted to ask him about a column one night outside The Mayflower in Jackson and he wouldn't even discuss it in person. He was a coward hiding behind a typewriter.
Even Bill's friends concur in your summing up, Kingfish. And your last sentence is, indeed, a master stroke.
I fear that like many long-lived folk before him, he not only ran out of juice but he also needed income. You don't get rich as a journalist, and certainly not as a crusading liberal journalist in the Deep South.
The C-L referenced Ellen Fentress' documentary about Bill. I've seen it, and it's well done. He could be self-deprecating, but he did not often show it in his columns. In the last decades he did come across often enough as preachy, but the tone that was more justified in the worst times no longer fits our far more complicated racial situation. Rachel James Terry embodies grievance politics (her photo is enough to make me want to quickly turn the page), but that time is past. We need voices from the middle, like Charlie Mitchell or Ray Mosby. Garner/Gardner v. Terry gets us nowhere. E. J. Dionne is classic knee-jerk. Kathleen Parker is the best at what she does, which is find the common ground of common sense.
Yeah, I'm too preachy myself a lot of the time, as others here are much too quick to remind me. Listen, it's tough being a centrist!!
There were a handful of people that Minor went out of his way to fry with his columns. They by weird coincidence were all Republicans. Trent Lott, Pete Perry, Haley Barbour, Andy Taggart, Bill Denny, Nick Walters, Amy Tuck after she switched, and others. Never went after any Democrat progressive who erred, such as Jere Nash. Of course, never went after his own son when he became the subject of the news. Bill Minor should rest in peace, but his legacy would be less tarnished if he didn't just target GOP officeholders and activists.
Regardless of your opinion of Minor...leave his kid out of it. Forget that it's tacky and petty, but it makes you look like an asshole.
Do unto others...that comes from that book you right wingers wave at me all the time when you pass ridiculous legislation to 'preserve your rights.'
I mourn for BM too. After spouting the bile lies of the liberal left for decades, he's now face to face with the G-d he mocked and is facing judgment for his actions.
May G-d have mercy on his soul!
Bill is gone and now let's all stop stomping on him. We all agree on what he was so let's hope his attitude is better when he visits St. Peter.
Historical figures such as Bill are post-criticism. We can debate all day long whether his articles were journalistic, political, racist, etc. But no one can deny his imprint on Mississippi's history. All those waiting for him to die so that he can be trashed, I hope that no one does the same when you pass away!
History will be very kind to Mr. Minor, he fought for just causes. Including the "Poor Whites" of Mississippi. Of course no one ever noticed that.
Minor outlived those who appreciated his writing. The ones of us who are still here only know him for his caustic drivel.
Bill Minor was more interested in making his fellow white people look bad than simply telling the truth and he did not mind making up his own truth to do it. He was a bitter man with no principles who could have done well with his life and raised a son with integrity but never let the truth get in the way with what he wanted. He wasn't a noble warrior for righting wrongs, he made new wrongs that he never righted. He served the left well so he was allowed to spew and spew. I resent being lied upon by anyone.
You all disgust me with your despicable comments. I cannot emphasize that enough. I am a Trump-voting Republican, and I did not agree with him entirely politically, but he WAS a HERO and a great man.
I met him and his family, and they were wonderful, kind people. He wrote about the things going on in Mississippi and risked his life to do so...to expose the evils that so many defended. He found a burning cross outside his office, for crying out loud.
If you knew him personally and did not like him, fine. Do you really need to get on the internet and post that after his death? And to call him a coward anonymously AFTER his passing? You all hiding behind a keyboard are the real cowards!
I am truly disappointed and saddened. RIP, Bill Minor...a walking piece of history, a hero, and a GOOD man that I consider myself extremely fortunate to have met.
Well 1:47, I am older than you and I was taught to have a 'governor' (for you younger people, a 'governor' as used is a device on a vehicle engine to limit the RPM's that it can only run a maximum speed in high gear)by my father who impressed upon me that I should always think first before saying something because words can come back to bite you. My dad always told me "to put my mind in gear before I put my mouth in motion". I have noticed over the last 20-or-so years that people spout vulgarities in public and on blogs like this one and Facebook just as if those words were clean and OK for the youngest to see or hear.
Now, to Bill Minor. I first met him in the 60's and we remained acquaintances. We never agreed on anything politically but it didn't stop us from being civil to each other. In my opinion, as he got older, he was more bent on trashing anyone who was a conservative and who was a Republican. I remember one time when a cross was burned against the front corner of his newspaper office. He just laughed about it. I only read his columns to see who was the bashee of the week.
When I moved here, Mr. Minor was still the first rate journalist that many admired for his courage.
I'd never seen anyone as meanly treated as Mr. Minor . He couldn't even go to the grocery without some jerk he'd never met having something awful to say to him and be physically intimidating.
I didn't know who I was defending when I intervened after a large male spewed filth at a man old enough to be my father in Sunflower. I let the jerk know in no uncertain terms that I didn't appreciate his language when there were children in the store.
In the end, that Mr. Minor gave in to giving others a less vulgar non-violent " taste of their own medicine" is not something I cannot hold against him.
I doubt the Lord will either.
It's funny how people like Bill Minor and Booby DeLaughter get to ride the coat tails of events such as the murder of 3 civil rights workers, Murder of Medgar Evars, and the revival of past civil rights tragedies and get to profit off of it. I never cared for the man, nor DeLaughter for that matter due to them trying to grandstand and take the spotlight and get credit for saying "look what I dug up"! And if any of you think for a minute DeLaughter had the found actual gun in his father in laws closet that killed Medgar then you might gullible enough to buy a bridge in the middle of the Pacific. That gun was supposed to be in an evidence vault by law, but the real gun's whereabouts were taken to the grave with the deaths of the 10 founding members of the Citicens Council.
This was a very dark place (in some ways still is), and Bill Minor shined a bright light in it. Thank you Bill!
8:55 give it a rest. Ross Barnett died a long time ago.
Wow, apparently being a white liberal in Mississippi is viewed as evil and taboo as pedophilia. Reading these hateful comments about someone who has passed, you would think that Bill Minor actually did something terrible in his life....more so than just voicing his differing views.
So very sad to see such hatred spewed against a man who did so much good with his life and was loved by many!
12:17. The sorry SOB did do something - many things - terrible in his life to use your words. He lied, over and iver, about people who's political views he disagreed with. If he hadn't been essentially judgment proof he would have been sued for libel/slander numerous times.
My upbringing teaches me that lying is a sin. And big lies is a big sin. And doing it for literally tens of people to read magnifies it. Although to read the platitudes being said about this bastard you would think that over the last few decades he still had more than those dozen denying still reading his dribble.
11.48, the people he is talking about which are not part of the KKK are businessmen from the Delta and other parts of Mississippi. They are quiet and powerful. Mr Delaughter stepped on some toes and he got what he deserved. That group even has politicians and law enforcement within their ranks. Ross might be dead but there are those who are smarter and quieter than he ever was and they are still at work.
to 12:55pm....... you don't know much about libel/slander law do you mr. legal expert. in case you didn't know, 1st amendment free speech rights, and especially political speech, are so broad there is no such thing as a winnable libel / slander case. now you know. obviously you "upbringing" did not include being taught to have respect or your elders and the deceased. and by the way you misspelled drivel.
KF- You didn't care for the thought of him being buried along with the Confederate monuments he's tried to bury for so long?
Bill Minor was a leftist propaganda tool for the Clarion (Liar) Ledger; and a Mississippi hater. The fact that any non-leftist subscribes to that rag is a great example of why the good ole US of A keeps moving further left. The left sticks together and punishes those that they disagree with, whenever possible; yet conservative sheep keep giving dollars to their enemies like the Clarion. Otherwise, many of those who subscribed to and read Bill Minor’s propaganda hate, along with that of the Clarion, would have cancelled their subscriptions years ago. Isn’t it kind of funny how stupid conservatives can be?
In April of 2015, Bill Minor was so offended by the installation of a Christian cross on Hwy 49 in Florence, he wrote this opinion piece:
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/2015/04/09/minor-new-additions-add-little-mississippis-luster/25519021/
In it he took one of the most used tactics from the leftist playbook; change the subject. In his piece, he talks about guns, the Christian cross, and of course the KKK, from 50 years ago. Funny thing is, maybe a little Christianity in Minors home could have saved him from raising a criminal white collar thug son named Paul. Of course Bill, and his leftist friends, resorted to yet another of the most used tactics from the leftist playbook; blame George Bush...Hahahahahahahahahaha (for the Jonathan Gruberites that actually believe this, read The Fall of the House of Zeus and Tort Kings to find out just how corrupt some Mississippi trial lawyers were back then).
In November of 2012 the Clarion Ledger claimed there were “riots” at Ole Miss due to the reelection of Barack Obama. Unfortunately it was just another leftist Mississippi haters lie. The actual events go something like this: a very small group of Obama supporters burned a Romney sign, and a very small group of Romney supporters burned an Obama sign; then a “journalism student” tweeted that there was a riot, and several hundred people showed up to watch. The journalism student most likely had remembered the class when she was taught that leftist journalists don’t report news, they create it.
The Clarion Ledger lie made national headlines, including the Drudge Report and the leftist propaganda rag The Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/university-mississippi-students-riot-obama-election_n_2088176.html ).
By the time the real news came out, from not so conservative Ole Miss professors, and from the Dean who had not even been aware of the “incident” until reading about it in the news on the following day, the damage to the university and the state of Mississippi had been done. The Clarion probably had a silent “Mission Accomplished” celebration; maybe during one of their regular celebrations while laughing about how many of their conservative Mississippi subscribers actually make it possible for them to spread their leftist lies and hate.
Here’s a more accurate account of what actually happened:
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/ole-miss-students-werent-very-good-rioting-over-obama/321659/
to 6:19.... i guess your rant makes you a rightist propaganda tool? you are a tool alright.
6:19: You just proved yourself one of those right wing nut cases that Bill did his best to protect us against. We will miss you Bill!
Minor was a journalist in the same sense that Tim McVeigh hosted a fireworks event following an M-Braves game at Trustmark Park.
He was a reporter in the same sense a cannibal is a chef.
The man was unhappy from the day he was born, or shortly thereafter, and was forever intent on stirring the pot of racist bullshit, most of his own creation. Men like Minor are not unlike modern-day college chancellors. They are motivated entirely by accolades, high fives and wine-toasts from their peers in other areas of the country. If a journalistic prize came along too, so much the better.
While most of us were up at night enjoying life, Minor was pining away, searching for a new angle to invent imaginary stuff that could cast his state in an unfavorable light. Night after night. Year after year. Decade after decade. Until he was dead. But it won't stop with his demise. The likes of Jerry Mitchell (and assorted other race-baiters) will keep Minor's odd cause alive by writing articles about him. Watch for it in the Sunday rags.
O.k. I am going to speak in defense of Bill Minor
It's funny to hear people rip the old man for having an unconventional perspective in a place, Mississippi, where it was permissible for black women to be raped without repercussions and black men could be killed in their own driveway, with a murderer getting off and people applauding those actions. It takes a person with strong moral character to go against the grain and call out wrong when it's not popular.
The mere fact that people are calling him a race baiter is proof, the would allow these wrongs to continue to happen if we were still in the Jim Crow era.
Considering he was a member of the white power structure in the Jackson metro area. He could have easily picked up the so-called Christian conservative mantle and pushed the Dixie-crat agenda, that eventually migrated over into the modern era Southern Republican Party. Instead, he took the path less traveled and he challanged their policy decisions and how it affected the disenfranchised.
He wanted to understand those that did not look like him, that did not have a voice. That takes conviction and character! That takes a backbone.
It wasn't easy for him, but he stuck to it. Because he wanted all Mississippians to look at each other and ask sincere questions. To get sincere understanding amongst each other.
If you are a white person that was bothered what Bill Minor had to say every Sunday - then he was doing a damn good job! Because he wasn't here to make you feel comfortable! He wanted to make you think about what was going on in your own back yard!? To shake the complacency in this place!
Thank God for Bill Minor and the wisdom he gave us every Sunday! I will miss seeing his articles.
The mere fact that people are calling him a race baiter is proof, the would allow these wrongs to continue to happen...
That's an odd and unsupported conclusion. Regardless of what you said in your 'defense' of Minor, if you look up the term race-baiter, you will find two photos. His and Jerry Mitchell's.
There are as many definitions and examples given for the term 'race baiting' as there are readers of this blog-site. Most of them include loosely (or blatantly) throwing around charges of racism in order to sway opinion or gain support for an argument.
Minor never wrote an article that didn't include at least *some* degree of that. And that had nothing at all to do with character, strength, morals or a desire to understand black folk.
His entire article was usually hinged on slapping others upside the head with a charge of racism or race based behavior. That did three things. It automatically shored up his support from those naturally already in agreement. It often gained him some support from those who would abandon one camp and defect to the other. And, It stirred up, angered and bothered all the rest. When he achieved all three, he grinned like a jackass eatin' briars (as my daddy used to say).
Debate comments such as 'Well, you appear to just be a racist', 'If you really think that about him, then that just reflects your racist tendencies', and 'you would have to have a racial agenda to think like that', are all examples of race-baiting and Minor had a whole book-satchel of similar suggestions. He could not succeed without using at least three in each article and he knew he had to plug them in in order to gain the attention of readers.
Here's a definition that seems to be popular on search engines: "One who insinuates that racism or bigotry is a dominant factor with regards to an event that either does not involve race or in which diverse cultures are involved are simply a minor element." That definition even includes the use of HIS name.
A perfect example of race-baiting is used above by catfish: "The mere fact that people are calling him a race baiter is proof, the would allow these wrongs to continue to happen if we were still in the Jim Crow era." Catfish has successfully used all three of Minor's motives: He has solidified the support of those who already throw accolades at Minor. He has gotten a few in one camp to defect in agreement and he has pissed off the rest, calling them Jim Crow racists.
Catfish. Your own version of race baiting in defense of Minor omits the whole issue of Minor -the so called journalist - ignoring truth in his rants. His concern was much more focused on smearing someone - and always and only a republican/conservative with his version of a story, ignoring whether there was any truth involved in his accusations.
As I said much earlier in this string, Minor was a crusading editor many decades ago. Did some good work back then. But he abandoned any claim to being held as an esteemed journalist - or anything else - due to his spewing crap over the past four decades.
"He could not succeed without using at least three (race-baiting terms) in each article and he knew he had to plug them in in order to gain the attention of readers."
".......................he abandoned any claim to being held as an esteemed journalist - or anything else - due to his spewing crap over the past four decades."
#1 - that is what a journalist supposed to do, catch someones attention
#2 - spewing crap for the last 40 years? Hell, in the last 40 years he showed Mississippians can have an independent thought aside from the bible thumping mainstream.
I'll say it again, Bill what to make some of you itch and he did a damn good job of doing so. Damn shame you didn't listen to a word he said. SMH
Minor was nothing but an OPPORTUNIST, who USED poor Black people, and victimized poor White people, in order to further his career. He was hardly alone, in that respect. He followed the TYPICAL trajectory of media types.
Those who controlled publishing, TV, and movies, were not interested in anything about the South, which did not demonize/belittle White Southerners, or lionize/idolize/canonize the various supposed "victims" of White Protestants. On the other hand, any third-rate journalist/author willing to help paint the Frankfurt-School-Approved picture, of crazed, ignorant, racist Whites, oppressing a rainbow of "victims" - well, such journalists and authors could expect fame and riches.
Minor was rather typical of what I've just described, except that he stayed in the South, instead of moving up North, to claim his reward for being such a a good little QUISLING.
You people are damn fools. From a Republican here, it isn't a crime to have a differing political opinion, as much as some of you wish it could be. To bash someone after they are deceased simply for having a different perspective is just vomit-inducing. I hope that those of you who get on the internet to anonymously bash a deceased man for all of his family to see have the same thing happen to you...after you die, people who disagree with you come out of the woodwork to talk about what a disgusting excuse for a human you were. Karma, have your way.
Regardless of any negative things you people perceived Minor did, this man did some undisputably amazing things in his life, far beyond what 99.9% of you will ever do.
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