Posted on 02/21/2019 5:07:20 PM PST by Simon Green
Goodloe Sutton is not offering any apologies.
Sutton, the publisher of the weekly newspaper the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, created a firestorm last week with an editorial titled “Klan needs to ride again.” The backlash included Sutton being stripped of journalism honors and censured by the Alabama Press Association.
Several lawmakers have called for Sutton, whose family has operated the newspaper since 1917, to apologize and resign.
Sutton said he’s received numerous comments from people across the country, some of which he printed on the front page of this week’s Democrat-Reporter under the headline: “Response: Love editorials.”
“The Democrats have been terrible,” he said. “The KKK are the nicest.”
He does not regret writing the controversial editorial.
“It got me about $10 million in free publicity. I know I would do it all over again.”
Sutton said many people missed the point of the editorial, however.
“The point of the editorial was ironic in that all these years, the FBI and the Department of Justice have been investigating the Klan and now, that shoe is on the other foot. (The FBI and Justice Department) are doing wrong and the Klan needs to investigate them. That’s what the point of (the editorial) was. Not a lot of people understand irony today."
Media from across the country have been contacting the newspaper, Sutton said.
“I walked into the coffee shop and some of my derelict friends said ‘here comes our celebrity,’” Sutton said, adding quickly that the attention – and criticism – “doesn’t bother me one way or the other.”
If people are offended, that comes with the territory, he said.
“Hell, that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Sutton, 80, said he’s in the process of selling the Marengo County newspaper, which has a circulation of around 3,000. He said he was also working on several books.
As for the “liberals” offended by the editorial, Sutton had a message: “It’s not their country. It’s our country and if they don’t like it, they can go to hell.”
Didn’t he describe black men wearing the clothes of their former masters and seeking justice?
Not exactly racist.
The man is an idiot. Doesn’t even understand the history of the KKK which was created by democrats and was violent and nasty trying to overthrow elected government.....residuals if the last grasper Lost Causers
Irony and sarcasm do not communicate well in the one dimension of black and white print, without a black and white printed hint suggesting that it is irony or sarcasm that is intended.
Black and white print does not have the voice, the face, the emotional imprint of a visible speaker, who can use all three of those things with which to convey the hints that the speaker is using irony or sarcasm to try to make a point.
I know. There have been dozens of times when writers comments and even persons text messages have been intended as irony or sarcasm and I did not know because of any context, or see any clue, that what they thought they were conveying was irony or sarcasm.
I try very hard to make it a point, when just writing words in this manner, to give a hint of my intentions when irony or sarcasm is what I am trying to convey, because I know it is not always clear in a black and white print context.
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