Memories of Mel

We got the awful, unbelievable news a year ago yesterday.

Brad Barnes, who had been a colleague ours at the Pensacola News-Journal in the early 1990s, was on the other end of the phone, calling from the newsroom of the Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Ga.

He said he had some bad news about our long-time friend Melanie Bennett, a police reporter for the newspaper.

We were going to see Melanie the next day for the first time in a couple of years. She was coming to Charlotte with some other people from her newspaper for a writers' conference. We were trying to nail down some plans -- not always easy with Mel -- to have her come out to the house for dinner, and were expecting her to call either that night or the next morning.

So what was the bad news? That Melanie wasn't coming? But why wouldn't she call and tell us that?

"Melanie died today," Brad said.

I said, "Brad, say that again."

It was the last thing in the world I expected to hear. Melanie's husband, Paul, had found her dead in their home a few hours earlier. It was eventually determined to be a heart attack, but that wasn't certain at the time.

It was left to me to break the bad news to Jayne as she returned from a business trip to Columbia, S.C. We were both devastated. It didn't seem right that someone who personified the phrase "full of life" was gone. She was only 42 years old.

We had known Melanie for more than 15 years, dating back to our days in Pensacola. She wasn't hard to get to know, and was such a presence she was impossible to ignore. She was a wonderful friend to us both, sharing a lot of our interests, not the least a love for reporting and writing.

But she also loved popular culture, especially movies -- her Oscar night parties and her Disney toilet seat stand out in my memory.

I always think about knee-jerk media critics and smile when I think of Melanie, because she would have confounded them so much. She loved to talk politics -- local, state or national. She would call us to talk about something she had read about the Clintons or George H.W. Bush or the latest reprehensible thing that Rush Limbaugh had said on the radio. (After the right-wing radio host's personal attack on Michael J. Fox a few days ago, we wondered what she would've said about that. Mel, some things haven't changed.)

But she defied stereotypes about media folks. She unapologetically loved lots of things that were decidedly not "elite" and were very red-state. She taped hours of the Jerry Lewis Telethon so she could watch it after work. She loved reality TV. She loved gospel music -- as I flipped through the channels on the satellite radio this morning I stopped on a song by the Gaither Vocal Band and thought of her. She loved her home church back in Geraldine, a little town in north Alabama.

And, Lord, did she love her Auburn Tigers. I was always grateful that we were friends despite my affiliation with the hated Florida Gators. A few years ago I was thrilled to find a biography of the late Auburn football coach Ralph "Shug" Jordan in the $1 books at Books-a-Million that I signed and sent to her. She loved it. (That last name is pronounced "Jerr-dan," as she was always quick to point out to the uninitiated.)

Jayne, Mel and I also worked together in Pittsburgh for a while. I don't think they "got" her up there in Yankee-land, but she did meet her future husband, Paul, a nice guy from Tennessee, on the Internet during that time. (Leave it to Mel to find the jewel out of all the freaks and nutcases online. Friendship found Melanie pretty easily and once you were her friend you were all in. You soon knew everyone she knew.)

After her marriage, Melanie moved to Knoxville, Tenn., where she and Paul adopted a son, Cody. They settled in Columbus in 2000. We only saw her a few more times after that, but we always kept in touch. Mel would call and she and Jayne (and sometimes I) would talk about the latest thing that interested us. (She was the first person to call us on Sept. 11, 2001, to tell us about the terrorist attacks.) Then she'd get another call and as quickly as she'd appeared in our lives, she'd be gone again. But that was just Mel.

A year later, it's still hard for us to believe we'll never talk to her again. But we aren't the only folks who remember her and think about her. We've spoken to many of her friends and relatives over the past year to share both grief and good memories.

And I think a true mark of a life well-lived is that people are still paying tribute to you a year after you're gone. See this link for a touching column from a colleague this week in the Ledger-Enquirer: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/15840700.htm

Mel, we sure do miss you. And we'll never forget you.

Woodward, bias and Bear

I saw journalist Bob Woodward on “Meet the Press” on Sunday and have had the chance to leaf through – but not read – his latest book on the Bush administration.
And the one lasting impression I have of the reaction to “State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III” is that it’s all a reflection of the state of the nation. If you’re a supporter of President Bush, the Woodward dissection of the administration’s handling of post-invasion Iraq is just another example of Democrat-loving media vultures out to get the President.
Hold on a minute.
Isn’t this the same Bob Woodward whom liberals were accusing of being co-opted by the administration after two books that portrayed Bush as a focused, take-charge wartime president? (I understand that the Republican National Committee thought enough of those books to tout and sell them on its website.)
I’m an admirer of Woodward, part of the generation of journalists spawned by Watergate, though I never had a big desire to be an investigative reporter. The man can get an interview and, as you watch his appearances on news and talk shows, you can see him listening, a skill that far too few journalists have mastered.
And while he’s become sort of a one-man corporation in the last few decades and is a Washington Post editor in name only, he still has what journalists must have – credibility. Whatever spin is put on his recent books by critics from the left and right, there hasn’t been much room to assail his accuracy.
And I believe he’s essentially apolitical, a stance difficult for partisans of any stripe to understand. He says his bias is, like any good journalist’s, against secrets. Here’s a link to a good recent Chicago Tribune interview with him.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0610080037oct08,1,5770437.story.
To me, the reaction to the books just proves what I’ve learned in a couple decades working for and being around newspapers – that people see in journalism just about what they’re looking for.
I don’t claim that all accusations of media bias are without merit, but many do exist only in the imagination of the media consumer. These complaints – the “MSM” are always against whatever you’re in favor of – have come mostly from the right in my years of media experience. But increasingly there are aggrieved folks on the left who think that newspapers, TV, etc, have a profoundly conservative bias.
I think it all depends on how we calibrate “bias,” and it also reminds me of a story – probably apocryphal – that I once heard about famed University of Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.
One fall Saturday afternoon the Crimson Tide were on the road somewhere in the Southeastern Conference, and – in the coach’s view – weren’t getting nearly enough calls or respect from the officials.
Finally, Bear decided he had had enough and called over the young referee who was heading that day’s officiating crew.
“Son,” he addressed the official that intimidating grumble-rumble of a voice. “I just want to know one thing – are you referees for me, or against me?”
The young referee looked at the coach, puzzled. “I’m sorry, coach. What did you say?”
“I want to know if you’re for me or against me.”
The referee replied, “Coach Bryant, you know that game officials are supposed to be impartial. We watch the game and make calls based on what happens, not whether we like someone or not.”
The coach walked away in disgust and was heard to mutter, “It’s just like I thought. They’re against me.”

No jinx here

I knew it was going to happen.

My latest Union Observer column was about a nice young man named Dan Brooks, a wide receiver for the Wingate University football team.

It's an example of a gamble lost. The column, written on Wednesday night last week for publication on Sunday, described how Brooks, an all-conference receiver who entered the season with 16 career touchdown receptions for the Bulldogs, hadn't caught a single touchdown pass in the first four Wingate games.

So it came as no shock to me on Saturday afternoon when Brooks broke into the open and caught an 84-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Anthony Metzelaars on Wingate' s second offensive play of the game. He caught a 35-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter. He had three receptions in the game for a single game career-high 138 yards.

I'm happy to be the SI Cover Jinx in reverse.