Article archive / June 1, 2012
Originally published: . Volume 3, No. 10. Source pages: 2.
Shakespeare’s wheel came full circle when the names of Dr. Julie Nelson and The Psychology Times were praised during Louisiana Press Association’s Freedom of Information Award presentation at the May convention.
Fittingly, it was her father, Gordon Nelson, with his weekly Coushatta Citizen, who won the first Freedom of Information (FOI) Award three decades ago.
I was a young reporter, not long out of the LSU School of Journalism, when I worked beside Gordon, a grizzled, Shakespeare-quoting journalist. We waged both legal and newsprint battles to obtain public records from an entrenched Red River Parish School Board. The newspaper sparked so much controversy that at one point, I was slugged and knocked into a row of chairs by the Superintendent who lost his cool over a story the Citizen was reporting. The Citizen won the Community Service first place for our efforts. Controversy was no stranger to Gordon who’d taken on the local KKK in the '60s.
Gordon Nelson was one of a dying breed of newspapermen who believed that freedom of information is truly what newspapers should be about.
Revenue for the owners? Yes. And spoon-fed stories for the readership? Sure. But at their core it was all about their ability to ferret out, then print information that the public has the right to know, about boards and governmental bodies which would prefer to keep that public in the dark.
When it came to the Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest, Gordon was miffed that there wasn’t a category more befitting our efforts than Community Service. He set out with the press officials to create a new category, the prestigious Freedom of Information Award. The FOI award would be presented to only one newspaper, regardless staff, frequency or circulation.
And, it would be the Coushatta Citizen that would win the Press Association’s first FOI Award the following year, for our efforts to pry open records from the Sheriff’s Office.
Julie Nelson was working on her doctorate while her dad was hammering on FOI. But her lifetime of growing up in the backshops of her journalists mom (Evelyn Hunter Nelson) and dad, was evident. Newspaper folks like to say that once immersed, you can’t get the ink out of your veins.
In 2009 politics took over Julie’s professional community. This was not okay with her.
“I think it even surprised me,” she said, “how much I got wrapped up in what Dad always called the public’s right to know. I really hated what had happened, on several levels. Psych- ologists willing to deceive people? I just couldn’t stand by for that.” She remembered the days of her dad, dubbed “The Bulldog of Red River Parish” in a 1978 South Magazine article. “He felt perfectly at home, stirring up people, when it came to freedom of information.”
“Dad had died in 2009 and mom in 2010,” she said, “So I’m sure grief was part of it. But also it was what I knew about groups. 'Emergent processes,' Don Glad, my doctor-father, also a newspaperman, had called it. Creativity needs information. We had none, less than none, actually. Infor- mation channels were being squelched,” she said.
Julie realized she could shine some light on the backroom dealings that had brought her disenfranchised community to this point, and launched The Psychology Times. “Open information has to be a fundamental for us, for all psychologists,” she said. “And fighting against self- deception. To thine own self be true.”
I was delighted when Julie called me, her dad’s former news editor, seeking some advice on journalistic how-to. (You appreciate it when a friend wishes to draw on your career experience.) So I’ve been on-board as the Times’ consultant from the start.
By the third year, the Times had earned the right to enter the LA Press Association’s contests. Julie said, “I told Nicki Waters at the Press Association, when I dropped off my entries, ‘Nicki, I’m entering my father’s contest!’ I think she understood exactly what it meant.”
Julie invited me and my wife to join her in early May for the press convention in Marksville. “I got to wear mom’s badge,” she explained, “from the 1947 Press convention in Monroe.
Sixty-five years ago Mama was 22, just back from DC and the war effort, and she went into LSU journalism. Daddy followed her in.”
This May, there on the display table for Freedom of Information was The Psychology Times, together with the Monroe News-Star and the Baton Rouge Advocate. The heading proclaimed these to be the first, second and third place winners, in no particular order. Later that night the entries were praised and the Advocate announced as the winner.
“Well of course I wanted to win, but really, the Advocate? The News- Star? I’m not really that grandiose, at least I hope not. And we did okay with some other awards.”
Julie looked at me and said she is still delighted, validated as a “real” newspaper. I could hear Gordon’s typical quip, “That plaque and a dime will still get you a cup of coffee.”
For the past 35 years, Julie Nelson has proven she’s a real psychologist. Over the past three years, she’s also proven she’s got a real newspaper for her psychology com- munity.
The reviews are in.
Lynn Hunter Nelson’s 1947 Press Convention badge worn by Julie Nelson at recent press awards dinner.
Days Gone By: Over three decades ago the Coushatta Citizen won the first Louisiana Press Association Freedom of Information Award. Pictured above are those celebrating. Front row: Julie Nelson and Mike Dooley, Second row: Diane Holeman, Lynn H. Nelson, Gordon Nelson, unidentified young lady, and Tim Nelson. Back row: Bob Holeman.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.