AP Reporter Jim Davenport dies

AP Reporter Jim Davenport dies

I saw this news first in an article on The State newspaper, which burns a bit.
Jim Davenport was always smiling. Except when he was on a story, and he was dogged and serious beyond belief.
I once had an editor tell me I was an iconoclast. I had to look it up. It's someone who shatters deeply held beliefs. But that was Jim, actually.
Journalists have a saying. "If you're Grandma says she loves you, check it out."
That was Jim. He would work a story to the bone, and if it was true, overwhelm you with the facts. If it wasn't, once he knew for sure it wasn't, he would happily move on to the next, none the wiser probably that they had Jim Davenport on their heels.
So why does it burn to read it from The State? Two reasons.
First, there is a widely held misconception that Gina Smith of The State is the reporter who took former S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford out over his scandalous trip to Venezuela on Father's Day weekend to see his paramour.
Gina Smith is a decent reporter. She was the one at the airport when Sanford got off the plane. But she doesn't flip a coin with a fellow reporter to see who got to drive down to Atlanta to meet that plane if not for Jim Davenport's initial reporting on this story. Jim broke it wide open. He got the first tip about Sanford being missing in action a few years back. He broke open his list of phone numbers and got cranking. In his list was a direct line to the island home of the first family, and he talked to former First Lady Jenny Sanford, who told him she had no idea where her husband was. The direct quotes he got and used were tantalizing enough that it put other reporters on the trail.
Jim Davenport, before and after, owned that story because he got the scoop. He later built a ton of additional scoops on top of it, about Sanford's use of state planes and private planes to travel. In the end,
It's not a knock on Gina Smith. Just the fundamental way I understand scoops and building stories.
Gov. Mark Sanford had to pay what still remains the biggest ethics fine in state history, and that started because Jim Davenport asked questions.
That's all he did, really. Ask questions. If the answers were -- if the truh was -- that Mark Sanford had used those planes and traveled completely in accord with state policy and law, there's no story. But Sanford did otherwise, and Jim's questions led to the truth being revealed. Again.
The second reason it burns, a little like indigestion, is that a prior story run in the The State about Jim Davenport receiving the Order of the Palmetto for his work, written by The State, showed them taking a little pride in Jim's award. Jim used to work for The State, you see.
He started out as a business reporter, but moved over into government coverage. He has made his mark, at the AP, as a government reporter. Why not at The State?
Many years back, as some friends and I gathered, with Jim, to have a night of poker and steaks in remembrance of another mutual friend who had passed on, Jim told me why he had left the state.
I only have his version, but I tend to believe it, having run into, on other occasions, some of the others involved. Let's just say his editor wouldn't let Jim be Jim and ask questions about a political ad being run by  former Gov. Jim Hodges. Jim wanted to "truth squad" the ad.
It might not have led to a different result in the election. But the voters would have been better served had the questionable ad been vetted.
Jim was out the door pretty soon afterward, because his bosses didn't back him up. 13 years at the Associated Press have proved The State made a pretty stupid decision.
Jim didn't want to vet the ad because he was a Republican trying to slam a Democrat. There are plenty of Republicans, Sanford included, who would say they are sure Jim was a Democrat because of the way he went after them. But he was never going after them. He was going after the truth. He didn't take sides, ever. He just asked questions, and he sent an example for most reporters in this state that they sadly do not come close to living up to.
That example, through countless stories, was something Jim gave me time and time again.
I can only say I did one thing for Jim. Well, other than helping him proof some pages and copy editing one very poorly written story for Portfolio Magazine at the University of South Carolina, back in the day.
The official story from the AP says that Jim Davenport organized the "first" audit of public officials' compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. That is true, but leaves out important information. Jim Davenport organized ALL the audits of the public officials' compliance with the FOIA. When I was editor at The People-Sentinel in Barnwell, I got a call from Jim Davenport or from Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. Press Association, asking if we would be willing to cooperate in a project.
Essentially, our reporters would go to communities that we never covered and would ask for records at police, sheriff's departments, county, city and school government offices. We would ask for records we know would have to be turned over immediately, and see what happened.
Reporters from other communities would come to Barnwell and Allendale counties and do the same. Because while the FOIA exists for the public at large, it is used primarily by media outlets and reporters tend to get treated more favorably than the public at large. That's what we learned.
That was back in the '90s.
In the 2000s, Jim decided we ought to do it again.
They did all the counties in the state except one, because something happened to a person. Because Rogers knew I had worked in Chesterfield County from 1994 to 1997, he knew I would know where to go to get some information. So I drove over to Chesterfield, went to the courthouse, the Sheriff's Office and asked for some routine police reports that would have to be turned over. I did not get them.
It gave Jim and crew another piece of data for the second audit of public officials compliance with the law.
Jim believed in freedom of information, and he didn't just complain about being personally stonewalled at time, which is what most newspapers and most reporters do. He did something about it. He got hundreds of people involved asking questions and proved that the FOIA is not quite followed as it ought to be.
A publisher boss of mine once told me while we preparing some background information on a local humanitarian type fellow who was dying that it issad we always wait for their deaths to run those stories.
"They should smell the roses," he said.
I said I don't have to wait until he died to run it. But I did have some more information to gather and that person did not get to smell the roses, unfortunately.
Jim got to smell the roses, I believe.
The one thing I did for Jim, after participating in that FOIA audit and hearing a couple of names of people that were going to be recognized by the S.C. Press Association, was mention to Bill Rogers that we should do something to recognize Jim Davenport. I didn't know what, but I made my feelings known.
I later heard from someone, somewhere, the SCPA had indeed given a special award to Jim Davenport.
Jim's obituary makes mention he was awarded the Order of the Palmetto. I am frankly surprised Gov. Nikki Haley went to such lengths to award it to him personally. It says she actually went to his house and visited with him for more than an hour before giving him the award. My wife thinks it went so long because Jim probably took the opportunity to grill her about something.
The Order of the Palmetto is the top award that can be given to a civilian in South Carolina for service to the state. With the short shrift given to the media these days, particularly to newspaper folk, particularly by conservatives, it is a stunning testament to his ability to do his job with excellence both in coverage and excellence in being fair.
My college experience with him was of him as the editor of Portfolio. A literary magazine with some reporting in it. His predecessor tried to make it more newsy. He continued that. His successors tried it to. So, as his obit says, he caught the news bug at USC. I can't say I was there when the greatness began. I think I was down the hall a couple of doors, however, when greatness began.
He was this goofball, with this huge smile, his eyes hidden behind the thickest Coke-bottle glasses on the planet. My picture of the man is him sitting at a dive of a rental house, under the water tower in Columbia, just off campus, staring at his poker cards, laughing as he or one of us recited a friend's mantra at the beginning of each hand.
That goofball I remember, that is the man, just a bud among drinking buddies. I can't believe he is gone.
But the byline, "By Jim Davenport, The Associated Press." I am thunderstruck that that awesome one is gone.
South Carolina is poorer for this loss.
When you seem him, Jim, say hello to Son, and I hope you have some nickels.
"Five will get you in the game."
RIP.

The 2012 Christmas Letter

I've had a long-standing tradition of writing a year-in-review Christmas letter for my cards. Started before I met my lovely bride. Since meeting and dating her, had a lot more stuff to write about.

People on the Christmas card get first dibs, but here it is now.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Friends and family,

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Once more.

Yes ... the letter at Christmas. We are come to it again.

I’m doing better than last year, at which time I wrote the letter on Christmas Eve. Still, we are days from it.

The year in review for the Guilfoyles  has some highs, some highers and a couple of not lows, but not greats.

I remain a copy editor and page designer working in Hickory, N.C., designing newspaper pages for the Florence, S.C., group of papers since October of 2010. That sets a milestone for me. Twice before I had worked in North Carolina, and the longest of those jobs lasted just seven months. The other just three. So in two prior jobs, I had not managed to work a full year in North Carolina. I’ve been at it more than two years now. 

It remains a nice job, but it’s a LONG commute with terrible  hours. But it keeps me in newspapers until I can figure out a better long term move.

I won three design awards in the S.C. Press Association annual contest, including a first place, so I’ve still “got it.”

Patricia is now firmly ensconced in the Diocese of Charlotte N.C. She is the editor of the Catholic News Herald. She is considered pretty valuable, though sometimes I don’t think she realizes how much. But I see the way some folks react to her and what they say to her. I don’t say it often enough, but I’m pretty proud of her. She actually, just days before, got a pretty major scoop on a story related to the HHS mandate. Her web reporter says her story became the primary source for it on the Google. Maybe on the entire Internets.

Her website is really taking off, thanks to the redesign she did, and the reporter she hired. Her other reporter twice went overseas, one time on pilgrimage and another time on an “ad limina” visit our bishop made with others to visit the pope.

One of the biggest things for both of us professionally brought something we never thought could happen -- we worked together, somewhat. She got a credential for her paper to cover the Democratic National Convention, which was held in Charlotte this year. In her preparations, she wanted someone who is, unfortunately for his eternal soul, more of a reporter than a Catholic, but Catholic nonetheless. And so I freelanced to cover the convention. 

She wrote some stories as well, and we tried to get the Catholic take on issues as locked in stone as abortion and contraception but others with more common ground such as immigration and health care.

I had take time off from my regular job to do this project for her, but I loved it. I have links to all my stories on my blog (address below) but I summed the whole experience up in my essay, “How I spent my summer vacation.” I spent it working. But it was a huge event to cover, and I wrote a ton of stories in a short period of time. Spending a lot more time doing just editing and design, I sometimes wonder if I can still do the reporting that I love so much. This proved I can.

Normally I just write to comply with AP Style, but this time Patricia and the rest of her staff had some extra work making sure that what I wrote also confirmed the catechism.

I wrote a couple of other stories from some S.C. papers, took a few pictures here or there. I live tweeted and took Internet video, the most interesting an interview with a woman, a man and a polar bear. You read that right. It’s on my blog. 

On the health front, I had surgery on my right eye in April and was out of work for about a month convalescing. Got to watch “The West Wing” on DVD. All of them. And I was stir crazy after a week. The right eye still has a stitch in it, but the vision is much better. That, coupled with a new special contact lens for my left eye led to my seeing a meteor, HUGE one, on my way back home in December. A Geminid meteor. Never seen one really before. It was amazing. 

Now with all the career junk out of the way, we turn to the most important topic of our family life. We have to say that sometimes it seems like our days just run together and we don’t get to do much. But then we look back and realize it has been a pretty amazing year for our son, Stephen Christopher. He has been on a few adventures with Mommy, and he has embarked on new chapters.

He is now 6, if you can believe it. He got a party from his aunties and uncle in Spartanburg, then one with a few friends here.

He “graduated” from his pre-school, Field of Dreams, and started kindergarten in September. 

His teacher, Mrs. Knox, remarks frequently how bright he is.

Another adventure for him was a recent trip he took with his mommy. In July, he went down to Florida to visit his cousins, Grandma and Grandpa Larson and aunt and uncle.

But a couple weeks back, he made the same trip, but this time he rode down on an Amtrak train. The hours of the train trip are not great, leaving Columbia at like 1 a.m. to arrive in Palatka, south of Grandpa’s house, around 8 a.m. And coming back, it’s leave at 10ish to arrive at 4 a.m. But it removes a lot of worry I have about them driving. It also is about the same cost as it would be paying for gasoline down and back. He enjoyed it.

Patricia is really good about framing trips like that as adventures, and he responds well to them.

She also took him to the mountains to go panning for gold and jewels. He got some really shiny ... rocks. But they are treasures to him.

As I wrote last year, he continues to amaze us, all the time. On top of everything else, he is basically a sweet, sweet kid.

Harry and Annie are doing well, though Harry continues to get a little bit more cranky, a little bit more lazy every day.

We know we haven’t been around or been in touch as much as we could. We are doing well, but our life is just non-stop hectic most days, so that when we get some free time together, we just generally want to do something quick and easy and together. But never doubt our affection.

Have a merry Christmas. (Email still the best way to reach me. I check it every day.)

We love you.

Stephen, Patricia, Stephen Christopher, Harry and Annie

December 20, 2012