Looking back on 16 years of editing The St. Louis American
When I first decided to move on from The St. Louis American after more than 16 years and landed another good job, my first thought was to leave without calling public attention to the transition. My thinking was that I am a role player switching roles, and that is nothing to fuss over. I am going from a role player (managing editor) in a newsroom to a role player (Public Information manager) in a reform prosecutor’s office. The respective missions of these two organizations are very important and the men who lead them, Donald M. Suggs and Wesley Bell, are newsmakers, but I saw no reason to call attention to my shift in role.
As my last day at the paper (Friday, November 13) neared, however, I began to think and feel differently. The managing editor of a community newspaper is a humble role, and it has kept me in close contact with the community that The American covers. A substantial part of the job consists in opening emails and answering calls and responding to what the community is trying to tell the community through the newspaper. Leaving this position is interrupting thousands of relationships and conversations, and it became clear to me that to leave without saying goodbye would be rude and out of character with what have been warm relationships and supportive conversations.
I believe my most substantial contribution to The American has been listening to the community, responding to the community, interacting with the community, and editing community voices into the newspaper. The American’s greatest strength has always been its connection to the community, and its greatest weakness has always been an understaffed newsroom. In the years that I have worked here, its strength got stronger simply because I was responsive to the community; everything I was sent for publication, I tried to use, even if it meant asking for something else it needed (often, a companion photograph) and making extensive, time-consuming editorial improvements. And, thanks to the economic crisis of 2007-2008, after just a few years on the job, its weakness got weaker, because we were forced to make staff cuts that, 13 years later, the paper has not yet fully replaced.
A veteran journalist who joined our newsroom on a fellowship just this year, when asked to comment at editorial meetings, tends to say the same thing: “I can’t believe how much you guys accomplish with how few people.” The secret has been compensating for the paper’s weakness (too few journalists) by relying on its strength, its connection to the community. Our community tries to use The St. Louis American to talk to our community, and if the editor simply pays attention, responds, and finds ways to edit community voices into the paper, they keep coming and even multiplying, filling up pages with bylines.
With the publication of the November 12 edition of the newspaper, the last one I will edit, I will have put to bed about 850 editions of The American. I would estimate, in 850 editions, I have edited into publication more than 10,000 writers, at leash half of them seeing their work published in a newspaper for the first time. Given the mission, focus, and core audience of the newspaper, I would estimate that I have edited into publication more than 9,000 Black writers, nearly 5,000 of them being published for the first time.
Most of these were the writers that come to any community newspaper. They were dutiful citizens writing letters to the editor about something of concern, devout church-goers wanting to announce a pastoral anniversary, aspiring writers hoping to publish a commentary, and interns (high school, college, and beyond) trying their hand at reporting. I am especially proud of the intern program that I have developed at The American, once again, simply by paying attention, being responsive, and putting in the time. I would guess that there are about 50 journalists working in the field today who started as my editorial intern or freelancer, almost all of them Black journalists.
Then, because our community and The American are both so extraordinary, our community comes to the newspaper in extraordinary circumstances, providing amazing opportunities for an editor willing to take some risks and do some work. I will tell just two stories.
A grandmother, Yvonne Rhodes, wrote to the newspaper about her grandson, Ray Lathon. He was a gifted young boy, something of a spiritual prodigy, a prayer leader at an early age. He also had been diagnosed with a brain tumor at age 5 and been told he had six months to live. “Ray has not done anything to deserve this, but he has not allowed it to bother him at all,” his grandmother wrote. “He believes that this is part of his life, that God is going to heal him, and he will be able to play and ride his bike again.”
I wrote back to request photographs of Ray and edited her letter into a front-page news report. It made an unusual call to action for a front-page news story. “I ask you,” his grandmother wrote, “the believers of the city, to celebrate Ray’s birthday on September 23 by praying for him.”
Ray defied his prognosis and lived to his next birthday. At that time, his grandmother came to The American to report that the family had received prayers and letters from New Zealand, Japan, Jerusalem and all over the metropolitan area and United States because of my story, which was just a rewrite of her eloquent letter. “Because of your prayers and prayers that came from so far away, and by the Grace of God, Ray has beaten the odds,” his grandmother wrote in a new letter she had prepared.
I published another story, again asking for prayers for Ray. I weep again now to remember that Ray did not live to see his seventh birthday. The memorial shirt the family made when Ray passed had a montage of photographs. One was of Ray and myself sitting arm-in-arm on a couch in the lobby of The American. I have photographs of myself in a small room with Barack Obama, reporting his rise to the American presidency, that don’t mean any more to me than that picture of Ray and me being included in the family’s memories of this dear child.
In the other story that I want to remember, I did not rewrite the letter that I was sent. As unusual as it was, given the circumstances and the first-person address, I simply printed it on the front page under the writer’s byline, DePorres Shepard Steeples Jr.
“I am writing you all on behalf of my 8-year-old sister, Kennedy Rain Thompson,” his story begins. “At this moment, as you see on the return address, I am incarcerated and so I can’t do much to help my little sister, but I’ve come up with this solution.”
He proceeds to expertly promote the book club that his sister had organized and ask that the newspaper provide coverage.
“I really do love my sister Kennedy a lot. I really do wish I could be out to help my sister. But I know I won’t be, not at least for two years. I am going to be sentenced to eight years, so I really pray that they parole me early so I can be a better person myself and also help my family and little sister become more successful inside her book club,” he writes.
“I might be incarcerated, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help my sister with her club. She wants me home to help her. But I can’t be there, so I’m asking you guys this. Can you all at The St. Louis American please put Kennedy inside one of your sections to support her book club? This is a way for me to help Kennedy receive more members.”
I went to visit DePorres in jail to celebrate the publication of his first story. Ironically, he was being held in the St. Louis County Justice Center, just above what will be my next office in the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office. It was, in fact, my first visit to a building where I expect to work for years to come.
Our collaboration was incredibly successful. A tremendous amount of other publicity followed, and the Nerdy Girls Book Club flourished. Searching for DePorres’ story by his name today, however, I see that he has continued to have scrapes with the law. Receiving his letter and editing him into publication was a reminder of the vast, wasted potential our community has in all of the young men — so very many young, Black men — rotting behind bars.
I am called to that work now. I am going to work for a Black man who is trying to reform the practice of criminal prosecution, and I want to help him. It has been nice working with you all. Keep in touch.
Chris King may be reached at the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office at CKing2@stlouisco.com