6B - Northeast Georgia History Center

6B
Journalism and the First Amendment of Northeast Georgia
Ellijay
George N. Bunch Sr. and Annetta Bunch, ride along in the Georgia Apple Festival Parade in October 2003. They were selected as the dual 2003 Citizens of the Year for their years of service
and dedication to Gilmer County as the owners of the Times-Courier.
The Times-Courier staff gathers together for a Christmas celebration in 1989. Pictured, front
row, l to r, George N. Bunch II, Annetta Bunch, George N. Bunch III, Donna Bunch, Rhesa (Sales)
Chastain, Tina Rhodes and Betty Pope. Middle row, l to r, Becky Settel, Sara Gardner, Mark Millican, Clair (Dakota) Underhill, Scott Hosier. Back row, l to r, Rosemary Spratling, Evelyn Padgett
and Buck Spratling.
Bunch family has run Times-Courier for three generations
By Nixon Bunch IV
The
Times-Courier
newspaper, official organ
of Gilmer County, had
its beginning in 1875 as
The Courier. In the early
years it changed ownership many times. In 1899,
another paper, The Times,
came on the scene, and intermittently The Times faltered, but both operated as
two separate papers.
C.F. Owen and A.M.
Edge purchased both papers Jan. 1, 1916, combining them as the TimesCourier,
a
politically
independent
newspaper.
Prior to that, the Courier
and The Times were factions of Democrats and Republicans.
Some of the earlier publishers of the Courier were
H.A. Lumsden, who sold
his interest to stockholders
consisting of E.W. Watkins,
J.M. Watkins, J.C. Allen,
William Ellington, P.H.
Milton, Davis Garren and
J.L. Garrett.
Both papers had a succession of owners/publishers, with such names as
Coles, Goss, Gates Tankersley, Holden and others.
In December of 1908,
T.H. Tabor sold his halfinterest in the Courier to
Horace M. Ellington, and
on June 10, 1910, the Courier was named the official
organ of Gilmer County.
Ellington was the last editor of the Courier, and Miss
Mary Tankersley of The
Times.
The Times-Courier was
sold by C.F. Owen to Roy A.
Cook in September 1959. It
then moved
from the back of Huff
Drug Store on the corner of
River Street and the town
square to its present location on 47 River Street. Before that, it had been in a
number of locations in and
around the square.
George and Annetta
Bunch, of Augusta, purchased the paper Sept. 1,
1967, and after two weeks
changed it from a flatbedpress method of printing
to more modern offset.
George Bunch, a veteran
newspaperman, was associated with the AugustaChronicle-Herald in various capacities, including
management and advertising. And before that he
was with the Spartanburg
Herald-Journal’s advertising department for nine
years. A short span of his
career includes publishing
the Cherokee Scout in Murphy, N.C.
After acquiring the
Times-Courier, Bunch became the editor and publisher, and his wife, Annetta, the associate editor.
They, with a receptionist
and long-time printer,
James Reece, put out the
2,000-circulation newspaper.
George N. Bunch III
joined the family venture
in 1972 and is now publisher and managing editor. It
is currently a 6,600 circulation paper with a staff of
18.
G. Nixon Bunch IV
joined the Times-Courier
in August 2006, as the third
The Times-Courier publisher/owner, George N. Bunch III, sits
on the back of his Ford Bronco reading the first copy off the
press in August 1983. Bunch is eagerly awaiting the entire
press run to be finished so he can carry it back to Ellijay.
The Times-Courier receives a visit from Fox 5 News Channel in the mid-1990’s. The channel was featuring small family-owned
community newspapers. Times-Courier staff and TV crew members are, back row, from left, Vince Little, Shana Parks, Keli
Fredrickson, Fox 5 reporter Doug Richards, Fox 5 camera man; George N. Bunch III and Clair (Dakota) Underhill. Front row, from
left, Donna Bunch, Rhesa (Sales) Chastain, Crystal (Ledford) Chastain, Ann Harley and Becky Bray. (Photo by Stacy (Stenberg)
Chastain Jensen, Times-Courier reporter.)
generation from the Bunch
family and now serves as
associate publisher.
The newspaper introduced its first basic website
in 1999 and began offering
the full paid e-edition in
2008 with more than 450
paid online subscribers.
The online presence for the
Times-Courier Web page is
going strong with 40,000
George N. Bunch Sr., owner and former publisher, helps cast
the vision in the early 90’s to ad designer, Keli Fredrickson, to
produce a spec ad ready to be sold to a customer. Bunch, 85,
died May 18, 2004.
page views per week.
With the overwhelming
popularity of social media,
the newspaper has a presence on Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram and currently uses these utilities
to update the public on every platform for every generation.
The
Times-Courier’s
logo is “Devoted to the prog-
ress of Gilmer County.” It is
recognized at the state and
national level as a prizewinning newspaper, having received awards from
the National Newspaper
Association in Washington
and the Georgia Press Association in Atlanta.
Nixon Bunch IV is associate publisher of the
Times-Courier.
Annetta Bunch, owner and former long-time editor, after 45
years still actively comes to the Times-Courier office and pecks
away on her typewriter, sending friends and family personalized
letters.
State clears a path to more open government
Georgia citizens
winners in 2012
legislative session
By Hyde Post
Today, Georgians legally have
more power than ever to examine
and review the records and meetings of their local and state governments.
The Legislature’s 2012 rewrite
of Georgia’s open government
laws, on paper, should help make
government more transparent.
The challenge will come in how
the new provisions are interpreted by the courts and public officials — and how citizens use the
tools the law provides to engage
with — and keep an eye on — their
government.
Georgia Attorney General Sam
Olens, who championed changing the law and played a critical
role in making sure citizen access
was strengthened in its language,
has pledged his office will be aggressive in supporting the citizen
empowerment intended by the
changes.
But it’s also a given that there
will be some public officials who
won’t comply. They will simply
ignore or actively resist the parts
they don’t like. It has always been
that way.
Those officials could face
harsher penalties for a lack of
compliance. Strengthened penalties for violating open government
laws tended to receive the lion’s
share of press attention about the
legislative changes.
Under the revised law, if a citizen illegally is denied access to
a public record or a meeting, the
violator could face misdemeanor
criminal charges and a fine of up
to $1,000 for a first violation and
$2,500 for a subsequent offense. It
used to be a $100 fine.
In practice, though, for a public official to be charged with a
criminal offense, a prosecutor
(the solicitor, district attorney or
the attorney general) would have
to be able to prove the public official “knowingly and willfully”
violated the law. That is the same
high standard of proof that was in
the law before, and the number of
successful prosecutions of public
officials for violating it over the
past 30 years can be counted on
half of one hand.
The revised law does lower the
civil standard and says that if a
citizen sues a public official or
government for non-compliance
with the law, and the court concludes the government was negligent, the court can impose a fine
of up to $1,000, or $2,500 for subsequent violations. Before, there
were no fines for civil violations.
However, litigating against local government still can require
deep pockets. Remember, the other side isn’t using their money to
pay for their defense; they’re using your tax dollars. If you win
what often can be a drawn-out battle to get access to a police report
or government contract or whatever, recovery of your attorney’s
fees is allowed, but not required.
And, historically, judges in Geor-
gia have rarely forced local governments to pay anything close to
the full price if they lose.
In essence, it is probably fair to
say the amended laws now have
baby teeth to help punish open
government sinners.
But the value of the legislative
changes is actually found elsewhere.
The real benefits for citizens
include reduced copying fees
for public records, down from a
quarter per page to a dime, and
strengthened language on electronic records that can take additional cost out of a records request. The open meetings law has
been strengthened to insist that
all final votes, including votes on
settlement negotiations and real
estate acquisitions, must be taken
in public and that minutes of executive sessions must be kept in case
someone later challenges whether
a closed meeting was legal.
Moreover, the new open records
law now has a preamble, which
may be its greatest strength. It
states that the “General Assembly
finds and declares that the strong
public policy of this state is in favor of open government; that open
government is essential to a free,
open, and democratic society; and
that public access to public records should be encouraged to foster confidence in government and
so that the public can evaluate the
expenditure of public funds and
the efficient and proper functioning of its institutions.”
The key is in that last part.
People are more likely to trust
government they can see. If you
have a concern about local government, or a distrust of it, don’t
take the view that you can’t fight
City Hall. And don’t defer to the
opinions of talking heads (including this one).
The Legislature has improved
the path for citizen access to their
government. But Georgians will
need to use it, or it will grow over.
This piece by Georgia First
Amendment Foundation President
Hyde Post was written for and originally ran in the Reporter Newspapers (Brookhaven, Buckhead,
Dunwoody, Sandy Springs). It also
appeared in the GFAF newsletter.