LINDEN, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama newspaper owner who promoted a revival of the Ku Klux Klan said Wednesday that he had a deal to sell the business just days after the departure of the African-American employee he tapped to run the weekly.
Goodloe Sutton told The Associated Press this week’s issue of The Democrat-Reporter of Linden, Alabama, could be his last. Besides owning the paper, Sutton serves as its editor and publisher.
Sutton — who has refused to apologize for promoting a resurgence of the KKK — would not go into details about the supposed buyer, and he has been trying to sell for years since the death of his wife. The weekly has few local advertisers.
Linden Mayor Charles Moore said he was recently contacted by a representative from a newspaper company interested in purchasing Sutton’s operation.
“She asked me if I thought someone could turn that paper around,” said Moore. “I told her she was going to have to do a lot of legwork.”
Sutton, 80, prompted a firestorm last month with an editorial criticizing Democrats that began: “Time for the Ku Klux Klan to night ride again.” The paper has had a reputation for publishing offensive content for years and lost many advertisers over an editorial criticizing blacks, Moore said.
Two universities rescinded honors previously presented to Sutton, and the Alabama Press Association censured Sutton and suspended the Democrat-Reporter’s membership.
Sutton turned over the operation afterward to an African-American employee, Elecia Dexter, but she left weeks later in a dispute with Sutton.
“She ran out the door. I don’t know if she quit or not,” he said. Dexter did not return a telephone message Wednesday.
The newspaper’s standing with the city of Linden, population 1,900, could be a sticking point in any sale.
The Democrat-Reporter hasn’t purchased a business license in three years and owes more than $800, Moore said. Dexter presented the city with a payment check but also asked the town clerk to delay depositing it, so the payment was returned.
City Council members have asked Sutton to pay the overdue amount and this year’s fee by the end of April, Moore said. The city could take action if the money isn’t paid, the mayor said.
“We can’t pull his license, that’s for damn sure. But there’s nothing wrong with putting a chain on the door,” he said.
Sounds like a plan. I saw where the editor who quit had delayed leaving because she was concerned about his cognitive situation.
"Tell you, you cornstalk, you cabbage, you son of a cauliflower? It’s
the first time I ever heard such an unfeeling remark. I tell you I have
been in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and it is the
first time I ever heard of a man’s having to know anything in order to
edit a newspaper. You turnip! Who write the dramatic critiques for the
second-rate papers? Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice
apothecaries, who know just as much about good acting as I do about good
farming and no more. Who review the books? People who never wrote one.
Who do up the heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest
opportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticise the Indian
campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a warwhoop from a wigwam, and who
never have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out
of the several members of their families to build the evening campfire
with. Who write the temperance appeals, and clamor about the flowing
bowl? Folks who will never draw another sober breath till they do it in
the grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you—yam? Men, as a general
thing, who fail in the poetry line, yellow-colored novel line,
sensation-drama line, city-editor line, and finally fall back on
agriculture as a temporary reprieve from the poor-house. You try to tell
me anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it
from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger
the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knows
if I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead
of diffident, I could have made a name for myself in this cold selfish
world. "
I can’t wait for these old fuckers to die off, unfortunately I am talking about myself too.
“Something, something, ‘chronic vegetative state’ …”
Let’s start up a crowdfund to buy it …
and then burn it to the ground —