Everything's Rosey at the Palm Beach Post

Bill Rose, managing editor of the Palm Beach Post in Palm Beach, Fla. and graduate of Ole Miss, spoke to journalism classes on Monday, Sept. 8 on a return visit to the school. The first impression I had of him was that he was could have been an old school newspaper man. All that was missing was the cocked back fedora with the pencil in behind his ear and a loose fitting blazer.

He told his newspaper anecdotes and that's what he told to us, as aspiring journalist, to do. Just tell stories. But his wisdom didn't stop with that advice. He told us to read good writers (newspapers, fiction and nonfiction alike) and to learn how to write, because writing and reporting are two different animals.

"You can write a story in print like a good storyteller tells a story," Rose said. "If you can write and you can report, there will always be a job for you [in newspapers]."

Rose also told the classes about the importance of well placed and meaningful word choices and how good words "click and purr and juxtapose against each other." One of the word tricks he told was if words are used that start with "S" or "SH" then the sentence will speed up.

Most of the questions asked by students dealt with the declining newspaper industry, but Rose believes in the future of newspapers. The large number of retirees in Palm Beach secures the income of the Post, but Rose and his staff are still preparing for the future. He said niche publications and a younger generation of reporters and newspaper people will turn the industry in a new direction.

Rose may be the last of his kind, an old newspaper man, but he gave me a new perspective on the what some speculate the dismal state of journalism could be. In my opinion, newspapers aren't dying, but evolving into something new.

William Christenberry's "Site/Possession" at Ole Miss

The Mary Buie Musuem at Ole Miss is a very unassuming place to showcase a exhibit like “Site/Possession” by William Christenberry. I only knew the exhibit was centered around the Ku Klux Klan and there were guards. I was intrigued, but I thought nothing else of it until I went to visit the exhibit on Tuesday, August 26. When I walked through the curtain into the instillation piece, I immediately tensed up. Eyes in hooded cloaks stared at me from every angle and my skin crawled as if the hooded figures were actually in the room with me. I was terrified and felt as if I were suffocating. All I could think of was hate, not directed toward the KKK, but what the KKK embodied. The whole experience made me feel awful and I felt awful for the rest of the day.

One of the main things I heard about William Christenberry was that he encountered a hooded Klansmen in a courthouse and as soon as Christenberry saw the man’s eyes he turned and left as fast as he could. From that moment on, the KKK took hold of Christenberry’s life in a way that can only be described as all consuming and obsessive.

The ethical concern that struck me most is that as much as some may hate to admit it, for a true Southerner, the Ku Klux Klan is regrettably apart of a Southerners identity. Unfortunately the KKK has become a part of our lives and although it is phasing out, Christenberry has reminded the public in a very blunt way. His effort is appreciated and hard to swallow, but is it needed? I’m not saying to forget history, but somethings shouldn’t be dwelt on.