7 minute read
Life Lessons
BUZZTHE
WHAT MATTERS NOW IN THE CITY
LIFE LESSONS JIM MORRILL
The longtime Observer reporter on retirement, the altered states of politics and journalism, and how he’s weathered a devastating personal loss
BY GREG LACOUR | PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICK HOVIS
LAST YEAR, nearly four decades a er The Charlotte Observer had hired him as a reporter in its Rock Hill, South Carolina, bureau—and a er 11 national conventions, 10 Presidential elections, and too many campaigns and interviews to even try to count—Jim Morrill decided that, at 70, it was time to retire. Morrill had been the paper’s primary political reporter since 1987, chronicling the Tar Heel State’s emergence as one of the most
important swing states in America and the assorted missteps and peccadillos of the politically prominent.
The native of Aurora, Illinois, graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 1972 and moved south in 1979 to work for The Herald in Rock Hill, then landed his first Observer job two years later. Morrill covered Charlotte city government, then state and national politics, as the city grew and, in his last decade or so, his industry withered. Toward the end, he and wife Kathy Haight, a fellow Observer reporter, su ered a monumental personal loss: Their younger son, Will, was killed in a late-night car accident. Morrill had thought about retiring before then. But he kept going for another two years, in part to cover one more presidential campaign and a national political convention but also because, in his grief, he decided work would be good for him.
We spoke with him in February, a little more than a month into retirement. His comments are edited for space and clarity.
DIFFERENT REPORTERS have di erent styles, and some reporters are pretty out there, you know, dogs on a leash, ready to go—and that’s just not my personality, for better or worse. But if I’m on a good story, I can stick to it, and I go a er the story.
THERE ARE A LOT of memorable people I’ve had the chance to cover. But when you’re covering (the late U.S. Senator) Jesse Helms or (former Governor) Jim Hunt, you’re aware that these guys are part of history, that they’re historical players, not only in North Carolina but in the country. I didn’t get along with Jesse Helms, particularly. A er he had le o ce and he was kind of in his later years, I went to interview him, and he was complimentary and friendly and not the guy who had yelled at me a couple of times before that, you know. But you see history sort of unfold, and you become aware of that later.
I WAS JUST LOOKING THIS UP, actually. When I came here in 1980, the population of Charlotte was just over 300,000, and now it’s three times that. The Observer was at the end of a real dead street, in a dead zone in downtown Charlotte. There were a couple of greasy spoons a block or two up the street on Tryon, but getting something to eat at noon was a challenge.
Will Morrill (far right in photo), the younger son of Jim Morrill and his wife, fellow journalist Kathy Haight, was killed in a car crash near Black Mountain in 2018. He was 23. Their older son, Max, is a Navy officer.
When I rst covered the City Council, that was the year (1983) that Harvey Gantt won election for the rst time (as mayor), and it was the year that Richard Vinroot won for the rst time, too, to be on the City Council. The City Council was pretty evenly divided at the time, and for years, that kind of went back and forth depending on who won the at-large seats. as to which party controlled the council. ... It was always a kind of a balanced city.
AND I REMEMBER LOOKING at the 2004 presidential results for North Carolina and for Mecklenburg County, and that was the rst year, I think, that Mecklenburg County had gone blue in a presidential race, and I went, “Oh, my God.” You know, John Kerry and John Edwards—OK, Edwards was a local guy, but Mecklenburg County had been red before that. So to see the Charlotte that we have today, both economically but also politically, is just so, so di erent.
NORTH CAROLINA’S SO DIFFERENT, too. It’s about twice the size that it was in 1980, ’81. Back then, it was all Democrats up there; Republicans were an afterthought. ... And in Presidential races, North Carolina was yover country for a long, long time. Presidential candidates, if they came to North Carolina, would come to raise money—the ATM analogy—and, of course, that changed in 2008. So we’ve gone from a real statewide Democratic state to a real purple state. … Demographics is destiny, right? And North Carolina cities keep growing. Look at Charlotte, the growth in the Triangle. They get bluer and bluer, and the red counties keep getting older and whiter. So I guess the battle is going to be the suburban counties looking forward.
IT’S BEEN SAD (to watch the decline of newspapers). ... The people who are still there are doing a great job under di cult circumstances, frankly. I mean, you have a pandemic, you have a lot of young reporters who are very, very good and do a lot of work. There was one the other day (Alison Kuznitz) who wrote every story on the front page. ... And the pandemic has really cut o opportunities for her to see people in person and get to know people and start building the relationships that we relied on and that you take for granted. But it made me feel like my job was more important, if that makes sense, because I thought I could do something that there weren’t a lot of other people doing—not because I was better, but because a lot of them had le for whatever reason.
(The most important lesson he learned in his career) BE FAIR TO PEOPLE. There are oftentimes two sides to stories—not always, but sometimes. You know, just give people the bene t of the doubt and treat people fairly.
YOU’VE GOT TO TRUTH-SQUAD everything. We used to do these TV ad watches during campaigns and truth-squad things, and then it became like truth-squadding stuff in every story, almost. Stuff like QAnon—I mean, it’s just ridiculous and crazy, but I think you just keep writing the truth and not get sucked into the noise machine. ... People try to control the message a lot more on both sides. They don’t want independent reporters telling the story. They want to control it.
(Ed.: Will Morrill, 23, was killed when his SUV ran o Interstate 40 near Black Mountain and hit a tree. He was ejected from the vehicle and died at the scene.)
IT WAS THE MORNING of Nov. 30, 2018. I had just gotten up, and there was a knock on the door, and there were two Highway Patrol o cers there. It’s the kind of knock you never want to get, and it’s been tough. It’s tough. It was tough then. It’s been tough ever since. You know, it’s like ripping your heart out every day when you think about it, and about all the things that might have been.
MY WAY OF DEALING WITH IT is by doing things. There’s a lot to do a er an accident like that, involving probate and all that stu . But we also set up a scholarship for him at Appalachian*, and people have been very, very generous in contributing money. And then his fraternity at App State started the Morrill Mile. We had a couple of hundred people one Saturday at Sanford Mall, which is like their quad, and a band, and people walked around. It was a fundraiser, and it raised about $10,000 for the scholarship. They gave their rst scholarship out this past year, which was good, and it’s an annual thing. ... So we’re trying to make sure that his memory stays alive.
I THINK IT KEPT ME WORKING for a couple of more years, frankly. I’d thought about retiring maybe earlier. In 2018, I was 68. I guess I wasn’t really ready to retire, either, and when that happened, I think I kind of needed a place to go, something to do. So that kept me working. … And that (2020 Republican National) convention just sort of zzled out, thank God. … But I was glad we got a chance to do one (in 2012). That was another illustration of how Charlotte has changed: You go from being yover country to hosting a damn convention. I never thought we’d see that.
*Will Morrill graduated from Appalachian State University in May 2018.
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