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The job cuts started at Advance newspapers in Alabama and Louisiana yesterday. This is all the beginning of the creation of two new companies in each state with a more digital focus. The future is here, and that future involves some job cuts. Here is the front page of each of the four papers most directly impacted.
Each image is linked to the story, so feel free to click through for the rest of their coverage.
If I may wrap my head around the journalism of our big shooting story — and this is my site, so I say that I can — I’ll recall something I said to The Yankee on Sunday. She was driving as we headed home from our rafting excursion. I was reading aloud the emerging news on the Saturday night shooting.
“They might stumble at first, but The Plainsman staff will do a great job of covering this story.”
I said that with pride, knowing they might struggle a bit because they are, after all, students. But I know what they are capable of because I was a part of that staff once. And it has been a great paper for decades. And I was right. They did a great job covering the story. You can see their continuing coverage here.
If you are interested in how the sausage is made Dr. John Carvalho wrote a piece for The War Eagle Reader on the subject.
Covering that first big story is always hard, but they’ve done very well so far. I’m proud for them. Shame they had to have a story like this, but it shows their promise, demonstrates their hard work and will, hopefully, give them confidence to go with the sudden attention they are receiving.
(Update: WHNT-19, the Huntsville, Ala. CBS affiliate did a story on The Plainsman’s newsgathering. See it here.
There was another press conference today, though there was not much new to say. The suspect is still at large. Desmonte Leonard, authorities believe, was at the house they targeted last night. The thought is that he was able to move on before the Montgomery police, Auburn police, FBI, state troopers, U.S. Marshals and four other agencies arrived on the scene.
The only other news was that the reward for information leading to his arrest now sits at $30,000. And law enforcement is openly telling the public they’re tired of being misled. They’re offering Class C felonies to anyone who gets in the way.
I dislike that that this has become a football story. It is hard not to, though. Two former players were killed. One, Ladarious Phillips, was transferring to Jacksonville State (The heartbreaking version of his story is that his new coach, Jack Crowe, had expected him at JSU much early this summer. He was, apparently, having a tough time making that change, though, and so the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time motif has even greater significance. Phillips everybody loved. He was 290 pounds and could do a backflip flat-footed with a big smile. The stories people tell of him in his hometown of nearby Roanoke, Ala., about being a father figure to young children, even when he apparently didn’t have one around himself, are sad and uplifting and heartbreaking. The other, Ed Christian, retired because of a back injury. He was still a student, though, a Georgia boy who, by all accounts I’ve read, also had a fine reputation.
Another current player, Eric Mack, was injured, but is expected to make a complete recovery. Whether he’ll play football again, Auburn coach Gene Chizik said, is right now immaterial.
But there were others, too, not affiliated with the football program. DeMario Pitts was a local boy, and he is dead at 20, leaving behind a son and daughter. Xavier D. Moss was killed at 19. John Robertson is in critical condition at a Birmingham hospital. The 20-year-old was shot in the head.
This is clearly beyond the scope of a football program, or an athletic department or even a university.
But, still, Chizik stood before the media today. Still shaken, exhausted and determined, he stood before this sign and said he wasn’t thinking about football at all. He was thinking about his players, and those families:
I noticed that sign in the spring, when I had the pleasure of hearing a presentation of a much happier sort in that same meeting room. But that sign means something even more profound this week than when it is normally read by football players thinking of Xs and Os.
And so this is a football story, though it shouldn’t be. But maybe it had to be, because that’s one of the things we do best. So let’s make this a football story, and Chizik the reluctant healer.
While no coach wants this kind of added work in their job, I’m sure most would do quiet well in these terrible circumstances. But Gene Chizik will be great. I think he’s a pretty good coach, but I’ve long thought he was a better man.
Oh, and the other big news: The Advance layoff meetings start today. In Huntsville, Birmingham and Mobile newspaper staffers are going into one-on-one meetings and being told whether they’ll have a future with the new company. Scary times for all those people.
I have friends in those newsrooms and have read the bylines or seen the efforts of others’ anonymous work for years, decades. No one wants to be a situation like this personally, but the future is here, says the company, and they’re changing for their future. Tough for everyone. Some 400 people are said to lose their jobs.
Later: Desmonte Leonard is in custody. He turned himself in to the U.S. Marshals in Montgomery this evening. Apparently he’d been negotiating with them for a good part of the day. Happily he’s been arrested without anyone else being hurt. And now the legal process can begin.
I mentioned this on Twitter, and I don’t want to overstate the point or anything, but we were at Mellow Mushroom when the news of his arrest was announced. You could fellow the atmosphere in the room change just a bit. Now, maybe, all of those families can begin to copy a tiny bit with their grief.
Talked about the Saturday night shooting on the radio this morning. You can hear that here. I’ve gotten out of the habit of listening to myself, so I won’t listen with you. And I’ve talked so much, too much, about the shooting on Twitter that I don’t care to do too muchh of it here.
This is all so unbearably sad. Three kids dead. (One of them a father of two, another a father of one it seems.) All of them with their lives ahead of them. Three more shot. One in critical condition with a head wound. All of them under 21. A suspect at large. And there is no good reason for any of it.
Chief of the Auburn Police Department, Tommy Dawson, holds up a picture of suspect Desmonte Leonard for the media:
The story goes on. The manhunt has shifted to Montgomery, the hometown of the police’s suspect. There are nine agencies involved in the search. Two have been arrested for hindering prosecution. We spent the night watching television, thinking they’ve got the suspect holed up in a house in east Montgomery. (Update: No one was there, after eight hours of waiting, surrounding and inch-by-inch searching in a tear gas-filled attic.)
So several families are in the height of grief. A community wonders how this could happen int heir home. A person is on the run. Some stories you just wish didn’t happen, but this one has only gotten started.
On our way home we stopped by Ocoee Outdoors to spend part of the day on the water. It was overcast and cool. The high was in the low 70s. Our guide said on this day last year — they’d consulted their records — it was 98 degrees. He’s been working here for 27 years he said, but he’s never seen the weather so mild.
We wore spray jackets, because the Ocoee River is always a chilly river and we were going to get rained on too.
We did not get out of the boat, but here’s a picture of a picture from a previous trip several years ago:
It would have looked like that today, but with more shivering.
Part of what we rafted down today was used in the 1996 Olympics. This, the guide said, was like car crash alley. Plenty of people would line the banks to watch you fall out. We did not. Here’s the bridge we went under:
And some of the views we drifted and paddled through:
You’d get warm from paddling and think A little bit of the river would be nice right now. And then a rapid would come along and splash everyone, disabusing you of that notion.
The best rafting on the river is Ocoee Outdoors. We’ve gone with them for years and years, and I easily recommend them to you. Everyone is incredibly personable, competent and safe. They, of course, have a photographer staking out the key places to sell you pictures of your experience. We saw him coming today and mugged for the camera. Should I buy these?
Great trip.
Early in the day I said to The Yankee that if you looked at the entire Saturday — the wedding, the reception and the after party — that this would be the perfect Andrew day.
We went to graduate school with Andrew. He did his bachelor’s at AUM and then went to Florida, worked at a few newspapers, did a master’s at FSU and then his PhD at Alabama. He’s a thoughtful, smart, articulate, crazed guy. We love him to death. He’s on the faculty at East Tennessee State and we wish he were closer so we could see him more often.
I’ve always wanted to see Andrew mad, because he is hysterical when he is faux mad. The truth of it, though, is that he’s a heck of a nice guy. We’ve watched big football games together. We’ve tried every Indian restaurant we can find. He’s helped us move. When my grandfather died Andrew was at a conference in Chicago with The Yankee. I texted her the news, she told him and he said “When do we leave?” That, to me, means as much as anything else that I like about the guy.
He’s an unabashed Alabama fan, but some things must be excused.
So he met this nice young lady who teaches middle school. And now time and love and all that cheesy stuff have brought them here.
They got married in a public park in the oldest city in Tennessee. There were family and friends that they’ve each grown up with. Not too few and not too many. The ceremony was brief and to the point. Simple and effective. Andrew, The Yankee said, was doing what we’ve come to call the Academic Nod — bobbing his head at each point of emphasis and agreement, each one of them, with a thoughtful look of contemplation, agreement and acceptance — as the bride said her vows.
I missed that. I was too busy watching this:
That is the father of the bride. “Her mother. And I,” he had just said. There was this great little half-a-beat of a moment in there. Writing it here, it just feels like it needed a bit of extra punctuation. He had the best, most sure and clear voice when he gave her away.
And then he retreated a few steps back up the hill, standing near us as we stood in the warm June sunlight. And this lady — whom I did not have the pleasure of meeting — got her hand gripped vigorously throughout the ceremony. I can’t imagine the watching-your-child-get-married experience of course, but I wanted to tell the man that his new son-in-law is one of the good guys.
Here they are wrapping up the nuptials:
We walked just down the street to the town’s visitor’s center. There’s an event room there and the tables were decked out with food and all the normal stuff you’d find at a wedding reception. One of Andrew’s college buddies had been tasked with making a play list. We made fun of it mercilessly — because that’s what this crowd does. The kids that were there put on a great dance revue. It involved lots of twirling.
Later, after changing clothes back at our hotel, we stopped back by the happy couple’s new home and spent the evening with all the 30somethings. The sky was warm. The crickets were out. There was more music and lots of laughter. As the twilight turned to darkness the laughter grew louder. Spending more than a few minutes with the bride, we had a great time watching this new person interact with our old friend. It’s easy to see how they get along.
And I was right, the entire day was just like Andrew.
