The Seigenthaler Times

“Pity the Poor Reader”

Vol. 1

The Seigenthaler Times

No. 1

A pu b l icati o n o f T h e C o m m unit y F o undati o n o f Midd l e T e nn e ss e e

November 8, 2012

Foundation Honors Seigenthaler with Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award NASHVILLE, Nov. 8, 2012 (CFMT) — John L. Seigenthaler has taken on corrupt public officials in print, abovethe-law legislators in court, and a rioting, racist mob in the street, all to defend the principles of free expression

for his nation and his community. One of America’s most well-known and respected journalists, his career has been a springboard from which to champion and defend individual and civil rights, the constitutional protections guaran-

teed by the First Amendment, and the causes of the poor and disenfranchised.

Today, Nashville salutes him for a lifetime spent speaking fearlessly and acting courageously.

During a luncheon at Nashville’s

Renaissance Hotel, Seigenthaler, 85, will receive The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee’s Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award. The Foundation is honoring Seigenthaler for his “tireless acts to defend human rights,

selfless service to country and community, and courageous vision and dedication to a just, truthful, free world,” said Ellen Lehman, president of the CFMT. Seigenthaler’s journalistic and political legacy includes four decades as a reporter, editor and publisher at The Tennessean and a concurrent nine years as the founding editorial director of USA Today. Two times during his newspaper tenure, he took leaves of absence to serve as an aide to Robert F. Kennedy, who was his close friend.

Upon retiring from the two newspapers in 1991, Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center, the nation’s foremost institution devoted to education, debate and dialogue about free expression, and remains intimately involved with its programs and forums.

“For the past 20 years, we have worked diligently, and I think with a great deal of innovation, to help people explore the rights guaranteed to them by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Seigenthaler said recently. “We hope that as a result of the dialogue they will realize that these rights are values, not threats, to society.”

Photo by Michael Bunch

Scribe and mentor

Seigenthaler joined the Nashville Tennessean in 1949. He distinguished himself as a reporter in the early 1950s, breaking a number of investigative stories. In 1954, he gained national attention after he kept a suicidal man on a bridge talking for more than a halfhour and then helped police grab him when he tried to leap to his death. Rising to become assistant city editor by 1960, he was both the beneficiary and (continued on page 2)

Seigenthaler Reporter Pulls Man to Wins Oratory Safety in Suicide Try Contest NASHVILLE, 1944 (Tennessean) — John Lawrence Seigenthaler, son of Mr. and Mrs. J.L. Seigenthaler of 3011 Dudley Avenue and a junior at Father Ryan High School, won the eighth annual Diocesan Oratorical contest Friday night in the Father Ryan auditorium with his speech, “True Americanism.”

He was presented with a trophy and a $25 war bond by the Most Rev. William L. Adrian, D,D., Bishop of Nashville.

NASHVILLE, Oct. 5, 1954 (Tennessean) — Reporter John Seigenthaler jerked a man from the jaws of death by his shirt collar 100 feet above the Cumberland River yesterday.

For 40 minutes, the Nashville Tennessean reporter shot questions to Gene Bradford Williams, 55, as he threatened to leap from the downtown bridge.

Then as Williams muttered, “so long. God forgive me for my sins,” Seigenthaler lunged from astride the

bridge railing and clamped a strong grip on his collar.

“I’ll never forgive you,” snapped Williams as police rushed to help Seigenthaler yank the struggling man back to safety.

Williams had called the newspaper’s city desk and said he was going to drop from the bridge. “Send a reporter and a photographer if you want a story,” he advised City Editor Bill Maples.

Nashville Corporal Gains Promotion MACDILL AF BASE, Sept. 6, 1948 (USAF) — Cpl. John L. Seigenthaler, Jr. who is currently assigned to the Hq. 126th Airways and Air Communications Service Squadron (AACS), has been promoted to Sergeant.

Sergeant Seigenthaler is the son of Mr. and Mr. John L. Seigenthaler, Sr. of 1926 Hayes St., Nashville, Tenn.

As a member of AACS, Sgt. Seigenthaler is a part of a world-wide communications system.

Inside This Issue: Poor Reader Pitied ........................ 2 RFK tabs Seig as Aide .................... 2 Seig Through the Years .................. 3 A Seigenthaler Crossword ............. 4 The Road to Freedom .................... 5 Al Gore, Jr. on Friend, Adviser ........ 5 Seig’s Time in Camelot .................. 6 Remembering Joe Kraft ................. 6

Man Who Tried to Jump to Death Thanks Reporter NASHVILLE, Oct. 23, 1954 (Tennessean) — The man who told John Seigenthaler, reporter for the Nashville Tennessean, that he’d never forgive him for pulling him off the railing of Shelby Street Bridge has changed his mind.

Seigenthaler received a letter yesterday from Gene Bradford Williams,

now at Central State Hospital for observation.

“Dear friend,” the letter said, “Inasmuch as I did say ‘I’ll never forgive you,’ I feel I owe you an apology for said statement. I also feel that I owe you eternal gratitude for saving me from the briny deep.”

Seigenthaler Named Editor NASHVILLE, March 22, 1962 (Tennessean) — John Seigenthaler, for the past two years administrative assistant to U.S. Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, was appointed editor of the Nashville Tennessean yesterday.

Seigenthaler assumed his duties immediately. He succeeds Edward D. Ball, whose resignation as editor was accepted by the newspaper’s stockholders Tuesday.

Seigenthaler, 34, had served the newspaper as reporter and assistant city editor until two years ago, when he became Kennedy’s aide.

“The Nashville Tennessean is very fortunate to have John come home to us as editor,” said Amon Carter Evans, publisher. “He is an able, aggressive newspaperman whose ability and experience will be of the greatest assistance in continuing the alert, progressive and far-sighted policies for which the Tennessean has become well known.”

Slugged: Seigenthaler Hurt in Riot MONTGOMERY, May 21, 1961 (Tennessean) — John Seigenthaler, administrative assistant to Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, was severely beaten and suffered a mild concussion while trying to protect a young white Freedom Rider from rioting segregationists here yesterday. The rioters were enraged by a busload of Freedom Riders, mostly black students advocating for an end to segregation in the south, who had disembarked at the city’s bus station.

Also beaten and severely wounded were veteran Freedom Rider John Lewis, a leader of the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins, and Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg. Both men are among a group of Nashville college students trained in non-violent civil disobedience who are now leaders of Rev. Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights Movement.

Seigenthaler, a Nashville native and former reporter for the Nashville Tennessean, was hospitalized at the Professional Center and reported in “good” condition last night. Seigenthaler, 32, was in Montgomery as the personal representative of President John F. Kennedy to talk with Gov. John Patterson about the President’s plea for police protection against racial disturbances.

As he drove nearer the bus station, Seigenthaler saw Miss Susan Wilbur, of 3608 Bush Hill Road, Nashville, a student at Peabody College and Freedom Rider, being followed by a group of angry women. One of them was smashing Miss Wilbur on the head with a heavy pocketbook. Miss Wilbur was staggering. Seigenthaler stopped his car and urged Miss Wilbur

Mrs. Dolores Seigenthaler, left, examines her husband John Seigenthaler’s head wound over his left ear, at the airport, May 21, 1961, Washington, D.C. Seigenthaler, a Justice department official, was felled by rioters in Montgomery, Ala., while trying to protect a white girl who was being chased.

Seigenthaler, an administrative assistant to Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, was in Montgomery to talk to Gov. John Patterson on behalf of Pres. John F. Kennedy. (AP Photo/Bob Schutz)

to get in. Miss Wilbur hesitated, saying: “No, you’ll get hurt.” A white mob surrounded them as Seigenthaler then made a quick move to get Miss Wilbur in the car. As he did so, he was hit in the head from behind by someone wielding a lead pipe, and fell unconscious onto the pavement.

Miss Wilbur returned to Nashville last night and told reporters: “That man (Seigenthaler) may have saved our lives. They were ready to kill anybody.” When informed Seigen-

thaler was the personal representative of the President, Miss Wilbur replied, “I didn’t know who he was. All I remember is that I think he told me he was a federal agent. But if he’d had a big revolver it wouldn’t have stopped that mob.”

Seigenthaler lay on the ground until police arrived and dispersed the rioters. Still unconscious, he was placed in the front seat of a police car and taken to a hospital.

Connecting generosity with need The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Keep up with the latest ways to give > CFMT.org

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The S eigenthaler T imes Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award (continued from page 1)

instigator of the paper’s emergence as an incubator for talented young journalists. Seigenthaler became one of numerous Tennessean reporters during the post-World War II era to rise to national prominence, and he would nurture many more during his career.

Seigenthaler’s reporting on corruption within Nashville’s branch of the Teamsters union brought him to the attention of Robert F. Kennedy, an investigator for a U.S. Senate committee of which his brother, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, was a member. Robert Kennedy testified at the 1957 trial that led to the impeachment of Chattanooga Criminal Court Judge Raulston Schoolfield, whose bribery by the Teamsters Seigenthaler had exposed in print.

John, Dolores, and John Michael Seigenthaler, in a 1957 photograph

Wooing Works for Seig NASHVILLE, Sept. 15, 1957

On Father’s Day, 1953, Dolores had a singing date at The Tennessean’s Sunday concert at Centennial Park.

That’s where she met Seigenthaler.

“He came up to the bandstand to interview me before the show began,” Dolores recalls. “He seemed awfully nice, but sorta sarcastic. We were married in 1955. He still seems awfully

Attorney General Picks Able Aide

Poor Reader Repeatedly Pitied

(Tennessean) — Born in Lexington, Ky., Dolores Watson moved to Rome, Ga. with her family when she was in high school. She completed a year of college there and then made the trip to Nashville to audition for WSM. She stuck, and her voice began to pop up on late, non-network radio shows.

NASHVILLE, Feb. 15, 1961 (Tennessean) — On the subject of bringing new men into government, Mr. Robert Kennedy said shortly after the election: “We want the guy in Nashville and South Dakota….”

None of Mr. John Seigenthaler’s colleagues doubted the Nashville reference included him, for his acquaintanceship with Mr. Robert Kennedy stretches back to 1957 when both were dealing with corruption in labor’s ranks.

Mr. Seigenthaler later assisted Mr. Kennedy in the preparation of his book, “The Enemy Within”, and during the campaign served with the Kennedy national headquarters.

Mr. Seigenthaler having demonstrated his capability in varied fields, it is not surprising that he has been named administrative assistant to the Attorney General. And we agree with Mr. Kennedy that the Department of Justice “is very fortunate to have a man of Mr. Seigenthaler’s abilities.”

The “New Frontier” has gained a highly competent, knowledgeable and personable young man. While his associates and many other friends here naturally regret his change of abode, all are pleased with his opportunity and wish him every success with his new undertaking.

NASHVILLE, Nov. 8, 2012 (CFMT) — Efforts remain underway to quantify how many times John Seigenthaler and those writing under his editorial direction have pitied the poor reader.

Seigenthaler was known to post “Pity the Poor Reader” placards and banners around The Tennessean news-

nice, but sorta sarcastic.”

Probably her greatest fan is little John Michael, her son.

“I do a lot of singing around the house,” Dolores says. “A few minutes after I finish a song, John Michael starts singing it. Although nobody could understand the lyrics, he does right well.”

room at frequent intervals during the nearly 30 years he ran the place. A fresh PTPR poster would inevitably appear shortly after a reporter, found guilty of committing obfuscation in his or her prose, slinked from the editor’s office for a walk of literary shame through the newsroom.

Viet Nam War: No Easy, Cheap, Quick Way Out

By JOHN SEIGENTHALER DA NANG, May 18, 1965 (Tennessean)— The cost of the U.S. struggle in Viet Nam is soaring – in terms of men, money and machines of war – and at this point, there is no quick, easy or cheap way out.

Ten days ago, when I came to Viet Nam, 30,000 U.S. fighting men were in the country. There are now 42,000 here – with more reportedly on the way. Another 35,000 Navy men are stationed on ships offshore in the South China Sea.

Now the number of American soldiers, sailors and Marines dead in Viet Nam has crept over 500 – five were slain in one attack yesterday – and many more will die in the days ahead.

As the monsoon season comes in late May, American air strikes will be cur-

tailed and the enemy – the Viet Cong – will become bolder. Then the U.S. casualty list certainly will increase.

I sat today in a Jeep at the end of the runway at the huge air base here and watched flight after flight of U.S. jet fighter-bombers roar from the airstrip and peel off toward the north.

“The birds are flying today, and the Viet Cong will get hurt,” said Lt. Col. Harry Howton, of Birmingham, Ala., formerly based at Sewart Air Force Base in Smyrna, who was with me on the Da Nang flight line.

“It makes me feel damned good watching those birds fly,” said Howton.

“We let the V.C. shoot at us all over the country before we hit back. Now it is our turn, and we are hitting back.”

Editor Cites Merger Threat

By KEEL HUNT Staff Correspondent

MURFREESBORO, December 13, 1968 (Tennessean) — The move toward area consolidation of America’s newspapers is a dangerous trend for the country’s intellectual pursuits, students at Middle Tennessee State University were told here yesterday.

“As I look at what’s happening in America,” said John Seigenthaler, editor of the Nashville Tennessean, “I see a trend that is really dangerous.”

“Because of economics, more newspapers are becoming consolidated power organs with only one voice and opinion that is heard.”

Seigenthaler said he recognizes inadequacies in all newspapers – including the Nashville dailies – but he claimed:

“If you look at cities which have two editorial voices, you usually have a more lively public.”

Emissary from the Kennedy Administration

As a Nieman fellow at Harvard in 1958, Seigenthaler invited the Kennedys to speak to his class about the Senate investigation in which all three had taken part. The following year, he and Robert Kennedy would work together on Kennedy’s book, “The Enemy Within,” about the labor racketeering issue.

In 1960, he took a leave from the newspaper to work with Robert Kennedy on his brother’s presidential campaign, later becoming Robert Kennedy’s administrative assistant in the Kennedy Justice Department. When authorities in the Deep South signaled they were going to put up massive resistance to the civil rights protests of the Freedom Riders, the president and his attorney general sent Seigenthaler to Alabama as their personal representative to try to defuse the situation.

On May 20, 1961, Seigenthaler met the Riders’ bus as it reached Montgomery’s bus station. So did hundreds of white rioters who, with police absent from the scene, set upon the Riders. Seigenthaler was beaten as he tried to protect a young Freedom Rider, and was left unconscious on the pavement for more than 20 minutes before police officers finally took him to the hospital.

The late historian David Halberstam, who was a reporter with The Tennessean at the time, wrote that Seigenthaler’s beating was a pivotal moment for Robert Kennedy, for whom politics was personal. The incident marked the beginning of Kennedy’s strong support for civil rights.

Seigenthaler worked for the Justice Department for another 10 months, calling on Southern governors and mayors in the company of fellow Justice Department operative Burke Marshall to warn them against trying to obstruct desegregation.

“I’d go in, my Southern accent dripping sorghum and molasses, and warm them up,” he recalled in a 1966 oral history interview. “Burke would tell them what the law was.”

Taking on the system In 1962, Seigenthaler returned to The Tennessean as editor, and in 1965, the newspaper launched a legal battle that solidified his reputation as a stalwart defender of First Amendment rights. After reporter Bill Kovach disobeyed an order from state legislators to leave a meeting they deemed secret, The Tennessean successfully sued to restrain the lawmakers’ power to conduct business behind closed doors.

Witness to heartbreaking history

Seigenthaler took another leave of absence from the paper in 1968, when Robert Kennedy decided to run for president. When the campaign’s California operation appeared to be foundering, Kennedy put Seigenthaler in charge of the northern part of the state.

On June 3, 1968, he drove Robert and Ethel Kennedy to the San Francisco airport for a flight to Los Angeles.

With the stress of the primary campaign almost behind them, the three travelers burst into song as they rode down the freeway. Three days later, Kennedy was assassinated. On June 8, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and Arlington National Cemetery, Seigenthaler served as a pallbearer at Kennedy’s funeral and interment.

Seigenthaler collaborated with three Tennessean reporters to write “A Search for Justice” (1971), a trenchant critique of the way three men were tried in the late 1960s – James Earl Ray for the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Sirhan Sirhan for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and Clay Shaw for conspiracy in the killing of John F. Kennedy. Their conclusion: “American justice works accidentally, if at all.”

A wordsmith among wordsmiths “A Word on Words,” Seigenthaler’s public television program devoted to books and authors, premiered in

January 1972 on WDCN-TV (now WNPT), Nashville. The weekly show, which Seigenthaler continues to host, has now run for more than 40 years.

Among its guests have been John Updike, Willie Morris, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Betty Friedan, Studs Terkel, and Julia Child.

An exacting and demanding editor with a passion for uncovering corruption and abuse, Seigenthaler oversaw numerous influential investigative series during his years at the helm of The Tennessean.

In 1973, Seigenthaler assigned reporter Frank Sutherland to check himself into Nashville’s Central State Psychiatric Hospital. Sutherland’s reporting on the facility’s horrific conditions caused a public outcry that compelled legislators to appropriate $2 million for improvements at Central State.

A 1974 corruption investigation

by Tennessean reporter Al Gore, Jr. led to the arrest of a Metro Councilman who was handcuffed in the Council chamber while attending a meeting of the Ethics Committee.

In 1979, Seigenthaler assigned night city editor Jerry Thompson to infiltrate two factions of the Ku Klux Klan. Thompson spent more than a year undercover before publishing a series of articles exposing Klan activities.

In 1982, a Tennessean investigation proved the innocence of Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman in Atlanta who was convicted of murdering a 14-year-old girl in 1913 and then lynched.

On the national stage

The Tennessean’s owner, the Gannett Co. Inc. launched USA Today in 1982 as a national newspaper, and tapped Seigenthaler to become its founding editorial page editor. He continued to serve as editor and publisher of The Tennessean until he retired from both positions in 1991.

On December 15, 1991, the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center, a program of The Freedom Forum. In 2002, the trustees of Vanderbilt University named the building at 18th Avenue South and Edgehill Avenue – which houses the offices of the Freedom Forum, the First Amendment Center and the Diversity Institute – The John Seigenthaler Center.

Seigenthaler maintains his offices there, as well as an office at the Newseum in Washington, DC, which he helped to found. From these command posts, he has remained a force for progressive change nationwide.

He has served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, chair of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Awards for the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, chair of the Profile in Courage Award selection committee of the John F. Kennedy Library

Foundation, a member of the Nieman Foundation advisory board at Harvard University (where he spent a year as a Nieman Fellow in 1958-59), a trustee of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a member of the Constitution Project on Liberty and Security created after the September 11 tragedies, and a member of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform organized in 2001 by former Presidents Carter and Ford.

He presently serves on the board of the Country Music Foundation, which operates Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, and on the board of the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

In 1986, Middle Tennessee State University instituted the John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies, whose endowment has grown to more than $3 million today. Scholarship projects bearing Seigenthaler’s name have been established at both Vanderbilt and M.T.S.U. Seigenthaler also is the author of the 2004 biography, “James K. Polk,” published by Times Books.

A passion for justice The enormity of Seigenthaler’s impact is ironically attributable, not to his own search for power but to his passion for giving voice to those who do not have it.

His instinct – instilled by working class parents of Irish and German descent who nurtured him on love and language outside the confines of Nashville privilege – has always been to speak truth to power, to stand by the underdog, to champion the lost cause, and to advocate for the oppressed individual squelched by institutional forces.

So it was that he most recently devoted his copious energy to the cause of Gaile Owens. In 2009 and 2010, Seigenthaler wrote articles for The Tennessean highlighting the disparate sentencing that had placed Owens, a Memphis woman, on death row.

Owens, a battered spouse, had hired a man to murder her husband in 1986 but did not raise marital mistreatment as a defense.

Seigenthaler pointed out numerous similar prosecutions of allegedly battered women who had been involved in killing their husbands in the past three decades. All had received more lenient sentences than Owens; most had been released from prison.

The Seigenthaler articles were an important part of a last-ditch effort by federal public defenders and other supporters of Owens to keep her from being executed by lethal injection. On July 14, 2010, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen commuted her sentence.

In October 2011, Owens was released on parole. As she emerged from prison, Seigenthaler was waiting to greet her.

The S eigenthaler T imes

Sandra Roberts, Frank Ritter, John Seigenthaler and Jerry Thompson work on the Leo Frank story, 1982. Frank was a Jewish businessman in Atlanta who was accused of murdering a young girl in 1913 and subsequently lynched. A 1982 Tennessean investigation revealed new facts demonstrating Frank’s innocence and identifying the probable killer. (Photo furnished by Sandra Roberts)

Seig Through the Years 1927 – Born July 27 to John L. and Mary Brew Seigenthaler, the first of their eight children.

1945 – Graduated from Father Ryan High School. Attended Peabody College.

1946 – Joined U.S. Army Air Forces, which became U.S. Air Force in 1947.

1948 – Promoted to Sergeant, then honorably discharged.

1949 – Joined Nashville Tennessean as reporter.

1953 – Tracked down the playboy heir of a prominent Nashville family and his former secretary, who had disappeared 22 years earlier and been declared legally dead; they were living

under an assumed name in Texas.

1954 – Won National Headliner Award for best “exclusive domestic news story” of 1953, the Texas scoop.

1954 – Grabbed a despondent man and pulled him to safety as he tried to leap to his death.

Dolores and John Seigenthaler arrive for the premiere of the movie Nashville at the Martin 100 Oaks Theater, August 8, 1975.

1955 – On January 3, married singer Dolores Watson, who later won Arthur Godfrey talent show and sang on national radio programs of Jim Reeves and others. Son John Michael Seigenthaler born in December.

1957 – Investigated violence and corruption within Nashville locals of Teamsters and Barbers unions, collaborating with U.S. Senate counsel Robert F. Kennedy.

1958 – Labor investigation led to impeachment of Chattanooga Judge Raulston Schoolfield.

1958 – Named a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University. Spent time on campaign trail with Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy, who was seeking re-election.

1959 – Helped RFK write “The Enemy Within: The McClellan Committee’s Crusade Against

Jimmy Hoffa and Corrupt Labor Unions.”

1960 – Left newspaper to take on a senior role with JFK campaign in Washington.

1961 – Appointed administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. On May 20, suffered serious injuries when a mob attacked Freedom Riders he was escorting in Montgomery, Ala. 1962 – Accompanied RFK on round-the-world goodwill tour.

1962 – In March, returned to Tennessean as editor.

1965 – Directed reporters to mount legal challenge to Tennessee General Assembly’s exclusion of

reporters from public meetings, leading to landmark ruling on access to government proceedings.

1965 – Reported from Vietnam on possible consequences of deepening U.S. military engagement there.

Gov. Ned McWherter, left, with John Jay Hooker and John Seigenthaler in Gov. McWherter’s office at the State Capitol.

1968 – Took leave from newspaper at RFK’s request to help run presidential campaign in Northern California. Kennedy won California primary on June 4 but was assassinated that night.

1971 – With three Tennessean reporters, published “A Search for Justice”, examining three recent trials related to assassinations.

1972 – Debut of “A Word on Words,” a public television program on books and authors.

1973 – Named publisher as well as editor of The Tennessean.

1973 – Assigned reporter Frank Sutherland to go undercover at Nashville’s public mental hospital, leading to exposé of widespread neglect and abuse of patients.

1974 – Guided reporter Al Gore, Jr. in two investigations that led to the arrest of Metro Council

members on corruption charges.

1976 – Discovered a Tennessean newsroom staffer had been informing FBI agents about anti-nuclear sentiments of fellow staff members.

1979 – Assigned journalist Jerry Thompson to infiltrate factions of the Ku Klux Klan, leading to major exposé.

1982 – Assumed role of editorial director at new national daily newspaper USA Today, while remaining at The Tennessean.

1986 – Middle Tennessee State University created John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies.

1991 – Retired from The Tennessean and USA Today. Founded First Amendment Center.

2002 – John Seigenthaler Center dedicated on Vanderbilt campus.

2005 – Defamatory claims in a Wikipedia entry about Seigenthaler sparked national discussion

about online speech.

Country music legend Johnny Cash greets Seigenthaler before The Tennessean publisher received the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Johnny Cash Americanism Award, June 16, 1990.

2010 – Seigenthaler’s advocacy was an important element in securing executive clemency for Gaile Owens, a convicted murderer who had been a battered spouse and faced an execution date within months.

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The S eigenthaler T imes

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John pictured with his mother and seven siblings in 1986 Back – Evalyne Seigenthaler Pace, Ann Seigenthaler Murphy, Tom Seigenthaler, Joan Seigenthaler Miller, Alice Seigenthaler Valiquette, Bob Seigenthaler. Front– Connie Seigenthaler, Mary Brew Seigenthaler, John Seigenthaler

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John Michael Seigenthaler and his wife Kerry Brock with their son Jack and Dolores and John Seigenthaler

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Seigenthaler with Willie Nelson and country music pioneer Roy Acuff. The Tennessean sponsored the Country Music Foundation’s Roy Acuff Community Service Award, bestowed on Nelson in 1987.

When Seigenthaler left the Department of Justice in 1962, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy presented him with this “Memorial Pipe” to recognize “his knighting for using his head in conflict” the previous May when he was attacked in Alabama.

Seigenthaler, Vice President Al Gore and bookseller Charles Elder chat outside the Elliston Place Soda Shop in Nashville.

John and Dolores visit with grandson Jack Seigenthaler in Connecticut.

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The S eigenthaler T imes

The First Amendment Center: A Bulwark In Defense of Basic Freedoms

The Call that Changed My Life

Nov. 8, 2012 — On December 15, 1991, John Seigenthaler paid homage to the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Bill of Rights by founding the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The center was born out of fear and hope. During the five years prior to announcing his retirement earlier in 1991 as editor and publisher of The Tennessean and editorial director of USA Today, readership surveys and opinion polls were revealing that people were rapidly losing faith in the news media’s reliability and credibility. Seigenthaler worried that the press’s unpopularity jeopardized its very existence.

“Alexander Hamilton famously stated about a free press, ‘Whatever fine words are inserted into the Constitution regarding it, it altogether will depend on public opinion, and the general spirit of the people and the government,’” Seigenthaler said recently.

“What I realized 20 years ago was that the general spirit of the people and the government was turning away from the news media, threatening the values of free expression that are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.”

As one of the nation’s most stalwart defenders of free speech, Seigenthaler decided to go on the offensive.

“I felt if I could raise the level of debate and dialogue about rights of free expression, the public would come to understand that its values were too dear and too precious to risk excluding,” he said. “So I thought, ‘Let us start this center.’”

In the 21 years since, the nonprofit First Amendment Center has become the leading national force for dialogue, debate and promulgation of free expression in all its forms. An operating program of the Freedom Forum and associated with the Newseum and the Diversity Institute, the center has offices in the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt and at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Its extensive programs are forums for exploring and understanding all of the guarantees of free expression: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the right to assemble, and the right to petition the government.

By AL GORE, JR., Tennessean reporter, 1971-76 45th Vice President of the United States, 1993-2001

Seigenthaler points to a number of innovative initiatives that have made an impact, such as Freedom Sings, a program featuring a band of professional musicians who perform music for audiences across the country that has, in the past, been kept off the air, condemned, criticized, or banned.

The center also has been at the forefront of the fierce ongoing debate about the rights and responsibilities of those who post news, information and commentary on the web. In fact, as he has done throughout his career, Seigenthaler did not shy away from using his own experiences – this time with anonymous online defamation – to raise important questions and affect change.

In 2005, someone posted to Seigenthaler’s Wikipedia biography the false allegation that he had been implicated in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. Seigenthaler worked for four months to remove the patently untrue information from the Internet encyclopedia, all the while publicly exposing the dangers of “online character assassination” and calling for applying basic standards of accountability to Internet information gathering, reporting and commentary. Soon after, Wikipedia began barring unregistered users from creating new articles.

“Much of media is moving online to take advantage of a wonderful new medium in which the wonders of the world are at your fingertips,” he has said. “The test is whether traditional values of credibility, accountability and reliability can be brought to bear on the Internet so that we develop online sources of information that are credible, reliable and accountable.”

In reflecting on all the center has accomplished, Seigenthaler remains characteristically optimistic about its continued capacity to help secure basic freedoms.

“While freedom of expression is never safe, it’s always in the process of being made safe,” he reflected. “Gradually, people realize that if you lose it, you lose the right speak out or peacefully assemble or petition the government.

Everything that goes on at the center is largely an effort to create that debate, discussion and dialogue about values that are too often taken for granted.”

John Seigenthaler has been a cherished friend and trusted adviser since I went to work for him in 1971 at the then “Nashville Tennessean.”

When I returned to Tennessee from Vietnam, I had no idea what I was going to do for employment, so I was excited and grateful he offered me a job. Before long, he became an important mentor – not only where reporting was concerned, but about my life and career prospects.

Several years later, on Friday afternoon, February 29, 1976, he called on the telephone while I was dropping my law school books off at home and preparing to drive to work at the newspaper. “We’ve got a story for Monday morning’s paper,” he began. “Joe L. Evins is announcing his retirement.”

After a pause, he added, “You know what I think.”

Evins had served the old 4th Congressional District, which then included my hometown, Carthage, for 30 years, and his retirement was a big surprise. That call changed my life.

Three days later, because of the heads up from John, I announced my campaign for Congress from the steps of the Smith County Courthouse.

In the years since, I have frequently turned to John for advice and counsel – still do – and his wisdom, character and insight are always invaluable.

Congratulations on the Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award, John!

Photo furnished by Nancy Rhoda

Seigenthaler presents Vice President Gore with his Tennessean personnel file at the opening of the Newseum in Rosslyn, Va., April 18, 1997.

A Nashville and National Treasure Nov. 8, 2012 — John Seigenthaler has deliberately and passionately woven his life into the fabric of the city where he was born. For more than six decades he has covered, literally and figuratively, every inch of it. Upon retiring from daily journalism, he chose to launch The First Amendment Center and bring it to national prominence from the vantage point of his hometown.

Yet as identified as he is with Nashville, he also has worn that identity like a bespoke seersucker suit on many a wider stage – the unhurried yet intense southerner who has brought his native city’s singular reputation for civility, charm and self-effacing intelligence into the following national and international arenas:

• In 1958, he was named a Nieman Fellow, journalism’s most prestigious fellowship, following his investigative reporting on several local stories that gained national attention.

• From 1960 until 1962, he left The Tennessean to work on John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign; and to serve in the Justice Department of the Kennedy Administration as special assistant to Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy. In this position, he first developed his lifelong reputation as a champion of civil rights.

• In 2005, in what became known as “the Seigenthaler incident”, he drew international attention to the growing problem of Internet defamation by publicizing that not only had false and anonymous information about him been posted to his Wikipedia biography, but his initial efforts to have it removed were unsuccessful.

• In 1968, he took another leave from the paper to help run Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign in northern California.

• In 1982, he became editorial director of a new national newspaper, USA Today, while still maintaining editorship of The Tennessean.

• From 1988-1989, he served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

• In 1991, he founded the First Amendment Center, which has offices at the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University and at the Newseum in Washington, DC, which he helped to establish.

John Seigenthaler, left, nationally acclaimed newspaper editor and First Amendment advocate, had the First Amendment Center named after him by Vanderbilt University. Nicholas Zeppos, right, Vanderbilt provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, and Charles Overby, center, chairman and CEO of the Freedom Forum, made the announcement on July 26, 2002.

in Czechoslovakia training journalists in what had recently become a free society.

• In the early 1990s, he spent a month

• In 2001, he was appointed to the National Commission on Federal Election Reform following the 2000 presidential election.

• Shortly after September 11, 2001, he was named to the national Constitution Project on Liberty and Security, and is still a member.

• He chairs the selection committees for the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profiles in Courage Award and the RFK Memorial’s Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.

Photo by Michael Bunch

Military Stint Brings Clarity on Segregation John Seigenthaler’s realization that segregation was absurd came atop a radio control tower. From 1945 to 1948, he was stationed at McDill Field near Tampa, Fla. while serving in the US Air Force. His bird’s eye view gave him broad perspective. In a recent interview, Seigenthaler recalled: “Before [President Harry] Truman desegregated the military, I was a control tower operator in the Air Force.

I worked six-hour shifts throughout the day. And I would look down at various times and see white airmen filing out

of their barracks from one side of the field, and black airmen filing out on the other side. Every day they would come out separately and go back separately.

Yet on in the distance, I could see the American flag flying at the gate. And I remember thinking, ‘What about this picture does not makes sense?’

“I’m sitting in that control tower at that job, and I’m realizing that the military doesn’t think some of the people serving with me can do the job I’m doing simply because of their color – and I know that’s stupid. Because I

know these guys.

“I remember this as the first time I looked honestly at where we all were and who we all were, and I finally knew there was absolutely nothing to the myth of inferiority or superiority based on color. We had all taken the oath to defend the constitution and protect our country.

“By the time I was out of the military, I had a sense of how wrongheaded and stupid segregation was. I took that mentality into the Justice Department.”

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John’s Time in Camelot John Seigenthaler first met Robert F. Kennedy in 1957 when he was covering the U.S. Senate investigation into national labor union corruption. Kennedy was chief counsel on the investigation committee. His brother, John F. Kennedy, was a committee member. Seigenthaler’s exposure of corruption within the Nashville branch of the Teamsters was central to the larger federal investigation.

The two men did not become close friends until the following year, when Seigenthaler was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and asked both Kennedys to speak to his class. Seigenthaler recalls that afterward, Robert Kennedy invited him and his family to spend Christmas with him at his home in Virginia, Hickory Hill. During that visit, he asked Seigenthaler to work with him on “The Enemy

Within”, a book he was writing about the recent investigation. Seigenthaler agreed, and moved to Hickory Hill for several months of intense collaboration.

He recently spoke of the Kennedy he came to know during those days:

“Bobby expected to be challenged by the people around him. He enjoyed discussion and debating and working out differences of opinion. Particularly during the months we were working on the book, there were obvious disagreements that we had to work out, but it brought us closer together rather than driving us apart. He was reasonably strong willed and I guess I was, but our discussions were always civil and respectful, and took place with a lot of humor. And he was very self-effacing.

The S eigenthaler T imes

“I remember one time while we were working, a reporter came in and said, ‘You’ve just been attacked by a Chicago lawyer and he says you’re a vicious little monster.’ Bobby responded, ‘Tell him I’m not so little.’ It was that sort of willingness to poke fun at himself that added to my admiration of him. While he was tough, he had the ability to see himself as others might see him, and to laugh at himself.

“Some people thought of him as being so tough that was he was unreasonable, but nobody who ever knew him thought that about him. I always knew I could say what I thought even if it contradicted what he thought, and that created a comfort zone that contributed greatly to our friendship.”

Robert F. Kennedy with DOJ assistants John Seigenthaler and future Supreme Court Justice Byron White.

Interment of Robert F. Kennedy, Arlington National Cemetery, June 8, 1968. Leading the pallbearers is son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Others, clockwise from left, are Stephen Smith (brother-inlaw of Robert F. Kennedy), John Seigenthaler, LeMoyne Billings (a family friend), Rafer Johnson (Olympic athlete), Andy Williams (singer), John Glenn (former astronaut), Lord Harlech (former British ambassador to the U.S.), Robert McNamara (former Secretary of Defense) and David L. Hackett (a family friend). Visible behind the coffin are W. Averell Harriman (diplomat and former New York Governor) and C. Douglas Dillon (former Secretary of the Treasury).

The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee: Leadership

OFFICERS Mr. Francis S. Guess, Chairman Mrs. Jerry B. Williams, Vice Chairman Mrs. Kitty Moon Emery, Secretary Mr. Charles W. Cook, Jr., Treasurer Ms. Ellen E. Lehman, President

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Ms. Leilani S. Boulware Mr. Richard M. Bracken Mrs. Agenia W. Clark Mr. Ronald L. Corbin Mr. John D. Ferguson Mrs. Irwin E. Fisher Dr. Stephen F. Flatt Mr. Jay L. Frank Mr. Gary A. Garfield The Hon. Alberto R. Gonzales Mr. Carl T. Haley Mr. Henry B. Hicks, III Mrs. Carol O. Hudler Mr. Decosta E. Jenkins The Hon. William C. Koch, Jr. Mr. Don MacLachlan Mr. Bert Mathews Mr. Robert A. McCabe, Jr. Mr. Stephen F. Moore Mrs. Deborah Taylor Tate Mr. David Williams, II

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Mr. Jack O. Bovender, Jr. Mr. George N. Bullard Mr. Ben L. Cundiff Mr. Farzin Ferdowsi Mr. Charles O. Frazier Dr. Thomas F. Frist, Jr. Mr. Joel C. Gordon Mr. Kerry Graham Mr. James S. Gulmi Mr. Aubrey B. Harwell, Jr. Mrs. Catherine T. Jackson Mr. Kevin P. Lavender Dr. John E. Maupin, Jr. Mr. Ralph W. Mosley Mrs. Donna D. Nicely Mr. Michael D. Shmerling Mrs. Susan W. Simons Mr. William T. Spitz Mr. Howard L. Stringer Mr. Charles A. Trost Ms. Deborah F. Turner Mr. Jack B. Turner Mrs. Betsy Walkup

Remembering Joe Kraft Book Program in Fifth Decade Founder of one of Nashville’s largest certified public accounting firms, Kraft CPAs PLLC, Joe Kraft won the respect and admiration of his fellow Nashvillians through a lifetime of service to his community.

A native of Davidson County and a son of Russian immigrant parents who owned a dry goods store, Joe was captain of the varsity football and basketball teams at Howard School. He attended Vanderbilt University on an athletic scholarship, continuing to excel in both sports during his freshman year.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Joe enlisted in the former Army Air Corps, for which he flew 31 missions over Italy, Germany and Czechoslovakia as a navigator on a B-17 bomber.

After his safe return to Vanderbilt, he graduated in 1948. In 1958, he graduated from what is now known as the Nashville School of Law and founded his accounting firm.

Joe’s involvement in the community encompassed service on corporate boards, in professional societies, with countless non-profits and on Metro Nashville boards and commissions. A significant portion of his energy was focused on service to The Temple, to the Jewish Federation Endowment Fund and to the Jewish community as a whole.

Joe’s family was his special pride: His wife of 49 years, Elsie; their son and daughter-in-law, Lee and Glenda; their daughter, Julie; brothers, Cyril and Morris; and four grandchildren brought great joy to his life.

NASHVILLE, Nov. 8, 2012 (CFMT) — “A Word on Words,” John Seigenthaler’s public television program devoted to books and authors, has now entered its fifth decade on the air.

Seigenthaler first produced “A Word on Words” in 1972, while he was editor of the Nashville Tennessean.

The show made its debut on public

television station WDCN in Nashville, which later became WNPT, Nashville Public Television.

The half-hour program now airs Sunday mornings on WNPT. Each week, Seigenthaler sits down with an author to discuss recent work and the craft of writing.

Seigenthaler hosts a rich variety

of scribes on the program. A sampling of the well-known authors who have appeared on it includes such names as Melissa Fay Greene, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Janet Leigh, Jackie Collins, Kinky Friedman and Peter Guralnick.

The host also goes out of his way to call attention to local Nashville authors and books with Nashville ties.

Joe passed away in December 1993. The award that bears his name seeks to perpetuate the memory of a very special person who led this community by his strength of character and his unwavering integrity. Occasionally this leadership was in the spotlight.

More often, Joe was found behind the scenes gently prodding the players along the paths he believed most beneficial. Above all, Joe cared deeply for his fellow man: his friends, acquaintances, and total strangers.

Joe will be missed for years to come. It is the goal of the Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award to recognize and thank others, who, like him, have made Middle Tennessee a better place to live through the simple act of caring.

Previous Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award Honorees 2011 Amy Grant and Vince Gill 2010 Governor Winfield Dunn 2009 R. Clayton McWhorter 2008 Cal Turner, Jr. and Steve Turner 2007 Nelson Andrews 2006 Martha R. Ingram 2005 Joel C. Gordon 2004 Governor Ned Ray McWherter 2003 Jim Ayers 2002 Jamye and McDonald Williams 2001 The Founders of The Community Foundation: Betty M. Brown, George N. Bullard, Ida F. Cooney, Richard J. Eskind, F.W. Lazenby, Ellen E. Lehman, Judith O. Liff, Alyne Q. Massey, Elizabeth M.Queener, Benjamin R. Rechter 2000 Irwin Eskind and Noah Liff 1999 Monroe J. Carell, Jr. 1998 Pauline Gore 1997 Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley 1996 Mayor Philip Bredesen and Andrea Conte 1995 Aubrey B. Harwell, Jr. 1994 Elizabeth Jacobs and Mary Jane Werthan

Seigenthaler interviews authors David Halberstam and Alice Randall for an episode of “A Word on Words.”

MTSU Establishes Seigenthaler Chair MURFREESBORO, 1986 (CFMT) — Middle Tennessee State University has announced the creation of the John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies, honoring veteran journalist John Seigenthaler’s lifelong commitment to free expression.

The Seigenthaler Chair will support activities related to freedom of the press and other topics of concern for contemporary journalism, includ-

ing programs featuring distinguished visiting professors and visiting lecturers at M.T.S.U., research related to free expression, and seminars and meetings related to the study, promotion and defense of free speech and First Amendment values.

The chair will bring to the university the nation’s most distinguished print and broadcast journalists and journalism educators to debate and discuss topics ranging from the future

The Seigenthaler Times

of news in a market-oriented society, to how free expression intersects with public opinion, to the changing marketplace for journalism education.

The Tennessee Chairs of Excellence program, established by recent state legislation, is providing the university with an initial endowment of approximately $1.3 million for the chair. Donations from private and corporate sources are expected to raise that figure significantly in coming years.

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Editor/Writer: E. Thomas Wood Designer: Brittany Schleicher Thanks to all who contributed to the creation of The Seigenthaler Times, including: John Michael Seigenthaler, Beth Seigenthaler Courtney, Katie Seigenthaler, Gay Campbell, Ellen Lehman, Rebecca Finley, Kallie Bienvenu, and Tyler Nelson Except as otherwise noted, The Tennessean and the Freedom Forum have furnished all photos used in this publication.

The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee

3833 Cleghorn Ave. • Nashville, TN 37215 615-321-4939 • CFMT.org