

of The Clarion-Ledger/Jackson Daily News Fred Sullens, editor of the Jackson Daily News and James M. Thompson, in "Percy Greene and the Jackson Advocate" (McFarland and Co., 1994), identified the leading white Mississippi press segregationists of the decade as Bob Hederman Jr. In 1957, The Clarion-Ledger publicly identified blacks with connections to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, considered by segregationists to be a group of communist "agitators." Printing those names endangered the safety of many Mississippi residents. It was an organ for the white segregationist establishment." "In a very racist state, they were the standouts," said Hodding Carter III, who worked with his father Hodding Jr., owner of the Delta Democrat-Times, in Greenville during the 1950s and 1960s. The older Hedermans left a mark for publishing newspapers that openly promoted white supremacy, even as white residents considered it an important community news organ. Fred Sullens stayed on as editor of the Jackson Daily News.įrom 1954 until 1982, the Hedermans owned both newspapers in town, the Jackson Daily News, the "afternoon paper," and The Clarion-Ledger, the "morning paper." Since at least the 1940s, The Clarion-Ledger has marketed itself as a statewide paper. "The News' editor, Frederick Sullens, and its business manager, Walter Johnson, told employees they had sold out under pressure of heavy losses of television station WJTV, owned jointly by the papers, and high court costs of a bitter legal battle that began a year ago," The New York Times reported. The judge sided with them, but the expense of a legal fight forced a sale. When Fred Sullens and other owners of the Jackson Daily News found out, they tried to block a buyout in court. Time magazine wrote in November 1954 that the Hedermans were buying up Jackson Daily News stock. The New York Times reported the deal happened despite a court ruling that blocked the Hederman family from controlling both papers. In 1954, the Jackson Daily News sold out to The Clarion-Ledger for $2.25 million. It was already a hybrid in 1920 when brothers Thomas and Robert Hederman bought The Daily Clarion-Ledger from their cousins.ĭuring the Great Depression, the Hedermans made a deal with the competing Jackson Daily News, and in 1937, the two newspapers incorporated as Mississippi Publishers Corp. As its hyphenated name indicates, today's publication is the merger of several papers. The Clarion-Ledger has a complicated past. 3, 2008, The Clarion-Ledger laid him off. From 1983 to 2008, he was the preeminent columnist at The Clarion-Ledger, a popular local personality who won awards and developed a strong following. In 1976, Hood returned to the Jackson Daily News and The Clarion-Ledger and stayed 32 years as a loyal newspaperman. Getting that job made his family proud and his daddy cry, Hood said. He had grown up believing The Commercial Appeal was the best newspaper in the South. Younger reporters referred to him as "Columbo."Īfter his year at the Jackson Daily News, Hood got a dream job when The Commerical Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., hired him. He developed a reputation over the years for wearing a certain hat to crime scenes. He stayed with that job until he retired this summer. Philbin left Jackson a couple of years later and became a crime reporter for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. The conversation turned to journalism and their future in it.

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The young men put their clothes in the dryer, then deconstructed the story, trying to figure how to be great. "How do you think he got that source to say that?" Philbin asked Hood. Philbin was a cub reporter at The Clarion-Ledger covering what he could.Īs they waited for the spin cycle, Philbin read part of one story out loud to Hood, then stopped and wrote something in the margin. Hood was 21, finishing his degree in sports information at Belhaven College and working at the Jackson Daily News as a sports reporter. Then Philbin pulled out a stack of old Associated Press wire stories he'd been saving. They sorted their clothes, put their coins in the slots and waited for the first wash cycle to begin. Orley Hood and Walter Philbin lugged their laundry bags into the laundromat near the Jitney 14 on Fortification Street.
