The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

The news broke as I was working on a piece calling former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe an American hero and President Donald J. Trump a traitor. It was a story fit for a Lynyrd Skynyrd song, “The Ballad of Goodloe Sutton.”

He’s the publisher of a little weekly newspaper with a circulation of less than 3,000 subscribers called the Democrat-Reporter in the small town of Linden, Alabama, population 2,000 just south of Demopolis in Alabama’s Black Belt half-way between Montgomery and Meridian, Mississippi. The world just found out what a racist Goodloe Sutton is because of publicity over an editorial he wrote calling for the return of the Night Riders of the Ku Klux Klan to save the good, white citizens of Alabama from taxes in Montgomery and the swamp creatures in Washington, D.C.

In this photo from Advertiser archives, Democrat-Reporter Publisher Goodloe Sutton reviews an article in 2015 about the paper moving to a new location: Alvin Benn

The language is right out of the Southern newspaper editorials during and after the Civil War, back when newspapers like the Montgomery Advertiser published such things, before they were shamed into jumping on the equal rights bandwagon as the Civil Rights Movement took hold from Selma to Birmingham in the 1960s.

It’s just a matter of time before Trump tweets his support for Sutton, the neo-Nazis from Charlottesville flock to town to save this man’s crappy little paper, followed closely by the AntiFa “Anti-Fascist” army.

Too bad since surely the Democrat-Reporter was on the verge of going out of business completely. A GoFundMe campaign will surely follow. Maybe a benefit concert from the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, complete with a Confederate Battle Flag backdrop. Will protesters from the Black Belt show up?

When interviewed, the man invited letters, comments, protests. Was it a publicity stunt?

It came to my attention through Facebook recently that the KKK has endorsed Trump for reelection in 2020.

How Goodloe Sutton’s racist editorials have escaped the attention of the news establishment for years is a mystery. But someone in Montgomery recently took notice, and figured it would make a good bit of sensational clickbait for another newspaper that also must be in financial trouble.

The Montgomery Advertiser, now owned by the Gannett company with the flagship paper USA Today, which is under a hostile takeover threat from right-wing Alden Global Capital LLC, somehow noticed the KKK editorial and wrote a story about it. Then all hell broke loose.

The New York Times wrote about it on Tuesday, citing a Twitter tweet from the editor of the student newspaper at Auburn who found more racist editorials in the Democrat-Reporter.

The University of Southern Mississippi School of Mass Communication and Journalism, which had inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2007, summarily removed old Goodloe Sutton from the Hall of Fame, issuing this statement.

“Within the last few hours, the School of Communication at the University of Southern Mississippi learned of Mr. Goodloe Sutton’s call for violence and the return of the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Sutton’s subsequent rebuttals and attempts at clarification only reaffirm the misguided and dangerous nature of his comments,” the statement read.

Sutton had confirmed to the Advertiser on Monday that he authored the Feb. 14 editorial calling for the return of the KKK, then went into more detail defending it.

“If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we’d all been better off,” Sutton said.

Asked to elaborate what he meant by “cleaning up D.C.,” Sutton suggested lynching.

“We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them,” Sutton said.

When asked if he felt it was appropriate for the publisher of a newspaper to call for the lynching of Americans, Sutton doubled down on his position.

“… It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?” Sutton said.

“The School of Communication strongly condemns Mr. Sutton’s remarks as they are antithetical to all that we value as scholars of journalism, the media, and human communication. Our University’s values of social responsibility and citizenship, inclusion and diversity, and integrity and civility are the foundation upon which we have built our School and its programs,” the university statement said.

“Mr. Sutton was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the School of Mass Communication & Journalism, the predecessor to the School of Communication, in 2007 based on his anti-corruption articles and editorials in the 1990s that earned him and his wife Jean numerous national and international journalism awards. In light of Mr. Sutton’s recent and continued history of racist remarks, however, the School of Communication has removed his place in our Hall of Fame.”

Auburn University’s Journalism Advisory Council also voted to revoke Sutton’s community journalism award on Tuesday, according to the Auburn Plainsman.

When first asked about it, the Alabama Press Association issued a statement saying it does not have any way to control what member papers publish. But after the story hit the New York Times, the Alabama Press Association Board of Directors voted Tuesday to censure Goodloe Sutton and suspend the association membership of his paper. The members have a right under the bylaws to address the question of expulsion of the newspaper at the next membership meeting.

More from Chip Brownlee, the editor of the Plainsman, on Twitter.

I took a dive into old issues of The Democrat-Reporter.

After a review of dozens of issues of the paper, it's clear the racist editorial brought to light yesterday was not a one-off event. It's common.https://t.co/hdeth30FJ4 via @ALReporter

— Chip Brownlee (@ByChipBrownlee) February 19, 2019

U.S. Senator Doug Jones, the Democrat from Alabama, tweeted his horror over the editorial.

OMG! What rock did this guy crawl out from under? This editorial is absolutely disgusting & he should resign -NOW!

I have seen what happens when we stand by while people-especially those with influence- publish racist, hateful views.

Words matter. Actions matter. Resign now! https://t.co/V1V1vxDBKH

— Doug Jones (@DougJones) February 19, 2019

Perhaps some fine song writer in the stable of Alabama country and rock music artists might consider writing this song for Lynyrd Skynyrd, or maybe the Drive By Truckers.

Will the racist gambit of Goodloe Sutton save his dying newspaper, or kill it?

Enquiring minds can’t wait to find out.