More Than a Name
Ask your average person to describe a journalist and they may conjure up different images.
There’s the overly-aggressive combatant shoving a microphone — or, these days, an iPhone — in someone’s face. There’s the bohemian agitator feverishly cranking out a column in the corner of a coffee shop. There’s the Bob Woodward wannabe clack-clacking away breaking news as cigarette smoke rises from a nearby ashtray. There are Barbara Walters, Jane Pauley, and Gwen Ifill protégés standing at the ready outside municipal courthouses.
These are archetypes forged from movie theaters, comic strips, and television news. They are products of pop culture, one foot set in reality, the other in fiction. Yet even as we romanticize a profession described as both factual and fake, there is something else to be said for the columnists and communicators living in our constituencies. It is something that — all too often — gets lost in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the biz:
These are human beings.
These are members of our communities.
These are more than just names.
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April Ross of BeeTV attended to Troup High School before graduating from Alabama State with a journalism degree. She always longed to be a reporter, but for various reasons, it never panned out. At least, not until January, 17, 2017.
After a shooting took place nearby, April grabbed the only camera she had: her phone. Immediately, she went Facebook Live with the story, and just like that, BeeTV was born. Her footage featured on Good Morning America the next day. Big city reporters scurrying to the scene asked who April Ross was. In a matter of a few hours, her previous career spent photographing senior pictures and proms was pushed to the side; she had achieved her dream.
Yet for April, this was more than a dream; this was a calling.
“It’s like a ministry because I know that God uses my platform to help other people,” she describes. “It’s not about me, it’s not about the viewership. It’s about helping God’s people.”
As an exclusively Facebook-based, community-centered platform, April’s viewers do not shy from contacting her morning to midnight. If there’s a job fair, she’s there. If there’s a crime, you’ll find her on the scene. Wherever there’s a story, there’s April Ross live from the beehive (as she calls it).
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Chances are, if April is there, you may run into Daniel Evans, editor and publisher of the LaGrange Daily News and Valley Times News in Lanett. An Alabama native (specifically the West Blocton area, around which the NPR podcast S-Town centered) and member of a military family, Daniel attended the University of Alabama in Birmingham, where he received his journalism degree.
His first job post-graduation landed him in Selma at the Selma Times Journal, where his office window overlooked the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge. In March 2015, when dignitaries near and far attended the 50th anniversary celebration of the Selma to Montgomery marches, Daniel was there. His location enabled him to interview celebrities ranging from Jim Harbaugh, head football coach of the Michigan Wolverines, to Bill Cosby.
In 2017, Daniel moved to LaGrange, where he was charged with overseeing the local newsroom now situated — incidentally — on the corner of Lewis and Broad Streets (opposite First Presbyterian). Since his arrival, the LaGrange Daily News has garnered top honors from the Georgia Press Association. Of course, like any well-run business, there are costs.
“The hours wear on you,” he notes. “It doesn’t always fit for your personal schedule. We’re always wanting to be everywhere, but we can’t be everywhere. Anytime we make a mistake — like a typo — those are long days.”
In spite of the costs, though, Daniel believes in the cause. Ultimately, it’s about this place he and his family call home.
“We want to make sure we’re meeting the needs of this community and serving it as we should,” he explains. “We want to make sure we’re not missing anything.”
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Ida Durand was ready for a change. An interior designer by trade, the demands of the industry had weighed on her considerably. Put simply, Ida wanted something different out of life. It was then that Ida realized something was missing in her beloved hometown: while LaGrange certainly had every reason to boast about its thriving cultural arts scene, there was very little in the way of fanfare about it.
Ida wanted that to change.
“My vision was to bring the art and music and culture up,” she declares while sipping an iced coffee at the Sweet Roast Café. “There are so many things in LaGrange that people who live here don’t realize we have.”
After teaming up with Account Executive Halee Yates, Ida launched Highland Living Magazine in December 2020 to highlight real people, real stories, and the very real — if not oft overlooked — treasures of LaGrange. Make no mistake: Ida’s mission and that of her fledgling publication is community-oriented and locally-influenced, and she hopes this passion for her neck of the woods spills onto the pages of the magazine.
As she says, “Our most valuable asset right now is the people. I love living in the south. I am very proud of living here.”
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Katie Van Schoor hasn’t always lived in LaGrange. Her career in broadcast news landed her everywhere from Jacksonville to Fargo to Savannah to Charlotte. Her favorite part of the gig? Investigative journalism. Why?
“Because I got to participate in justice,” she responds. “I like really good meat. I like to get into complicated matters and look into it and unwrap it.”
For Katie, it has always been about giving people a voice, whether in one of her former communities or here at home. Now, however, her role is a bit different. No longer does Katie anchor a news desk in front of the lights, cameras, and directors of a television studio. Instead, as Marketing and Communications Manager for the City of LaGrange, Katie spends the lion’s share of her time working directly with officials to ensure information gets out to those who need it — including some of the very journalists described here.
Yet the end goal remains the same: telling people’s stories, even when those stories come at great costs.
“As a journalist, you have to do those hard stories,” Katie says. “You have to make the hard decisions.”
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Coleman Vice has been in the broadcast business since he was 14 years old. As a teenager, he volunteered for a local cerebral palsy telethon, pulling cable for the floor camera. After that, he was hooked, and he took every job he could to net him more experience in the industry. Now, the Anniston native and LaGrange resident is the owner and operator of Eagle’s Nest Incorporated, a local conglomerate of five radio stations spanning the west Georgia and East Alabama areas.
Ask Coleman what he loves about his job and he’ll tell you that he never gets bored. His is a vocation in which you never do the same things two days in a row. Yet ask Coleman about his community and he lights up.
“Part of our mandate is to do things for the public good,” Coleman says, referencing protocols from the Federal Communications Commission. “So we’ve done weather radios for every school in four counties working with Duracell. We also have worked to keep people informed about the pandemic with PSAs.”
The list doesn’t stop there. Eagle’s Nest also runs telethons in Randolph County (AL), covers elections for Troup, Chambers, Heard, and Randolph Counties, and constantly seeks ways to bring communities together to reach needs.
Yet, as with other news entities, there are hard decisions to be made which can receive backlash and prove taxing to Coleman and his employees.
“You’re not just some faceless name,” he points out. “We’re members of the community. If you’re mad, you can walk right in the door. We’re right next to the movie theater. You can find us.”
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These aren’t just names on a page or on a television screen.
These are human beings doing the work of the people for the people. They are truth-tellers, investigators, accountability partners, bastions of the beat, hands-craftspeople of the headline.
If a mistake is made, big or small, they toss and they turn. If a story breaks in the middle of the night, the news will not wait for them. As Katie Van Schoor notes, “Journalism is like a really bad boyfriend: when it’s good, it’s good. When it’s bad, it’s very, very bad.”
The strains of the profession are real; yet so are the benefits.
April Ross recalls a story about a man from West Point with stage four cancer. As he fought that dreadful disease, it came to April’s attention that his home was in tremendous disrepair, including a roof that leaked considerably and a floor that was soon to fall through. Instantly, April went live from the beehive to tell her audience about the man’s home, and within the span of a few hours, she had raised $10,000.
“I realized that God is bigger than that floor,” she remembers. “They did the floor. They rewired the entire kitchen. All new appliances. They painted the house and they’re going to paint the outside of the home. That story showed that people in this day and age still care. We push aside our differences and let’s help our fellow man. There are still good things that can happen here. We are better together.”
Then there was the tragedy in Hogansville of a man who was struck by a train. While writing about the accident, Daniel Evans realized there wasn’t much known about the individual whose life had been lost. So, as a good reporter is wont to do, Daniel did some digging and discovered more to the man’s story and how he had interacted with the residents of Hogansville. For Daniel, it was an opportunity to do what he loves.
“I love telling people’s stories,” he says. “I like telling folks what’s going on: a feature you write on somebody that might not get spotlighted. Diving deep and telling a story about something that’s really important that really needs to be brought to light.”
Talk to Ida Durand, Halee Yates, Katie Van Schoor, or Coleman Vice about their work and you’ll detect a theme: it’s not about glory or notoriety or garnering any sort of accolades. For them — as it is with April Ross and Daniel Evans — it’s about community. It’s about seeking the truth in a world where the truth is often interpreted as either entirely fake or factual, with very little room made for gray. It’s about putting your name and reputation on the line every time you publish or broadcast.
And, with that, there are risks and rewards, which no doubt weigh on the minds, shoulders, hearts, and hands of those who craft these stories. These are not faceless extensions of an endless spin machine cranking out the latest and greatest in the endless 24-hour news cycle. Nor are they the flawless experts on all things news-related as their customer base so often demands that they be.
These are stewards of our community.
They are caretakers of the currency called story.
They are enterprising, imperfect, compassionate, marginalized, creative, misunderstood, thoughtful.
They are human beings.
They are more than just names.