This is my last weekly column for The Times-Picayune|ถถา๕h, but Iโm not saying goodbye. Iโm just marking the end of my Long Strange Trip in print journalism. I ainโt dead, but I am seriously grateful.
Having been blessed to spend more than 51 years as a reporter, editor and newspaper co-owner, I must give thanks and credit where itโs due: to my parents, my teachers and my colleagues.
My parents persistently encouraged my eight siblings and me to pursue our dreams. I often needed an extra push. Iโm forever grateful to them for giving me both.
My career path started with a schoolboy crush on my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Kay Lyons, who once said I was going to be a writer. That was it. No voice from the clouds. Just the power of a kind word from a beloved teacher. From that moment, I was drawn to storytelling.
In my freshman year at Holy Cross High School, I applied to join the schoolโs award-winning newspaper, The Bulletin. Thatโs how I met Ken Hechler, who taught the only journalism course I ever took. Kenโs former students include two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists โ Rene Sanchez, executive editor of The Times-Picayune|ถถา๕h, and Alex Martin, an editor at The Wall Street Journal.
Clancy DuBosย
Photo by Chris Granger / The Times-Picayune
Thanks to Ken, I experienced the thrill of seeing my name atop a newspaper story for the first time at age 13. I was hooked. Ken and Holy Cross gave me a safe place to start writing. Kenโs gentle but meticulous tutelage also made it fun.
I caught my big break thanks to photographer Ralph Romaguera, who pushed me (see the pattern here?) to apply for a summer internship at The Times-Picayune. I was 18 years old and scared stiff, but I did as Ralph instructed. I got a call the next day asking if I could start immediately โ a year after I graduated from high school. I still canโt believe I was so lucky.
Since the day I walked into the cacophonous TP newsroom โ we wrote on typewriters back then โ Iโve had ink in my veins. Iโve seen a lot of changes (todayโs hushed newspaper offices are like libraries compared to old-school newsrooms), but one thing hasnโt changed: Journalistsโ mission is to speak truth to power and raise hell when those in power ignore the truth.
I canโt imagine a better way to earn a living, or to spend a life.
I continued working at The Times-Picayune while in college, and I quickly got a taste of major news stories. I covered the Up Stairs Lounge arson in June 1973, just six weeks into my internship. The fire killed 32 people, almost all of them gay men who led closeted lives. The fire and its aftermath inspired the gay rights movement in New Orleans, but progress exacted a heavy toll.
I witnessed big political stories early on. The citywide elections in 1973 brought major changes to New Orleans politics. The 1974 campaign to adopt a new state constitution, led by new Gov. Edwin Edwards, likewise changed Louisianโs political landscape.
In the ensuing half-century, I covered the 1982 crash of Pan Am Flight 759, the 1984 Worldโs Fair, the continued rise โ and tectonic fall โ of Edwards and countless other politicians, along with elections, disasters (Katrina was The Big One), triumphs and tragedies, and, of course, Winnas and Loozas.
After lunch at the Governorโs Mansion one day during his historic fourth term as governor, Edwards pulled me aside and asked how I thought history would treat him. The question surprised me, but it showed how heavily his legacy weighed on him, even then. โThatโs up to you,โ I said. The rest is, well, history.
Speaking of history, I was blessed to work with older reporters who had covered legendary political figures. One of them was James H. Gillis (not to be confused with my friend and colleague, the lateย James Gill), an elderly TP political columnist who had covered Huey Long in his own younger days. My youthful colleagues look at me as if I have a portrait in my attic when I tell them I once worked with a guy who covered The Kingfish.
I got to know several thousand politicos and some of the most colorful political operatives in America. Their passion for power and politics fed my own drive to untangle our stateโs complex political machinations.
I majored in history at UNO, but I got my masterโs in Louisian politics on the job. History was the perfect major for me โ professors Stephen Ambrose and Joseph Logsdon taught me that journalism is the front lines of history. My other mentors included all my colleagues and editors as well as some of the best political consultants in the business โ pollsters Joe Walker and Ed Renwick, and media gurus James Carville, Ray Strother and Jim Carvin.
I also got schooled by two of New Orleansโ best mayors. Moon Landrieu in 1977 dubbed me โBoy Reporterโ because I had the youthful audacity to ask him for an interview without going through his press office. He never stopped calling me that, but he generously shared with me his vast reservoir of political and worldly wisdom.
Dutch Morial taught me more than any politician Iโve known, but I didnโt realize how much he mentored me until after he died suddenly in 1989. Dutch loved to pick fights with the press, but when the TV cameras shut down, heโd call me over and whisper, โWhat you hearing?โ We shared a passion for what Dutch called โthe chess board aspectโ of politics. I wish he could have stayed with us longer.
My favorite political character โ and a terrific bourrรฉe player โ was Maurice โHippoโ Katz. A confidant of Dutch Morial, Hippo uttered one of the greatest lines Iโve heard in 51 years of political reportage. In 1985, I introduced Hippo to NBC political correspondent Ken Bode. At the time, Morial was trying to convince voters to change the city charter so he could seek an additional mayoral term. When Bode asked Hippo what job he wanted in Dutchโs third term, Hippo answered, โI donโt want a job. I want a position!โ
I canโt make this stuff up.
My association with Gambit has been the most enduring part of my career. I began as a freelance political columnist in December 1981, a year after Gambit was founded, and Iโve loved every minute of my 43 years as a columnist, editor and co-owner. My wife Margo, who served as Gambitโs publisher for three decades and made it the most successful alt-weekly of its size in the country, remains my best editor. She saved me from myself more times than I can count; Iโm forever grateful to her for that and so much more.
John and Dathel Georges bought Gambit in 2018 and kept it going through COVID and other challenges. In an age when newspapers were dying across America, John and Dathel enabled great journalism to thrive across ถถา๕h. In doing so, they have given all ถถา๕hns access to governmental transparency and accountability โ the pillars of modern democracy. They deserve all our thanks for their unwavering commitment to local journalism.
Finally, my deepest thanks go to you, my readers โ including my many critics. I especially appreciate those who took the time to point out where I didnโt get it quite right, or when I was just flat-out wrong. You were my mentors, too. Thanks for pushing me.
Like most of you, dear readers, I love my city and state with all my heart. Thanks for joining me on this Long Strange Trip.
And finally, a correction โ Itโs ironic yet fitting, considering how many errant politicos Iโve criticized, that I must end my last weekly column by owning a mistake. In last weekโs โTop 10 Political Stories of 2024,โ I misstated businessman Troy Henryโs (and his companyโs) experience in the sanitation business. Henry Consulting has provided sanitation services at the Superdome and Louis Armstrong airport for five years and in the Downtown Development District for the past year. I sincerely apologize for the error.