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Covering Greenville scar Wilde once said that in America the President reigns for four years, but journalism governs forever and ever. An example of journalism influencing public policy played out
in Greenville under a newspaper dynasty, the Carter father-andson team, Hodding Carter Jr., known as “Big,” and his son, Hodding Carter III, a duo who published the Delta Democrat-Times backto-back from its founding in 1939 until “Little Hodding” became involved in the Jimmy Carter (no relation) administration in 1976.
BY CAIN MADDEN
“That is a benchmark,” said Dominick Cross, who was editor of the Delta Democrat-Times until August of this year. “It is something to behold and to try to emulate. I was not living in Mississippi at the time, but I know it won the Pulitzer Prize and was a great place to work.” In its time, former Washington County Attorney Josh Bogen said, the Carter newspaper was a conscience for Greenville, which liked to call itself “Queen City of the Delta,” a city that peacefully integrated its schools, kept the Ku Klux Klan in check and avoided racial violence. The paper also aggressively covered the community, probing everything from civic clubs to backroom political deals to racial injustice to water meter scandals. “The Carters played a key role in what Greenville was,” Bogen said. “The newspaper is extremely important to the lifeblood of a community, particularly the columns and editorials written by the editor and publisher. It is often the first thing people read.” Hodding Carter III believes that the DD-T helped the community prosper. “We helped a lot,” Carter said. “We put out a paper that wanted to cover the town heavily. Also, because we were tireless
42 • W H AT E V ER H A P PE N ED TO M A I N ST R EE T ?
