Magazines: Sophisticated Muckraking

Red and white I’M FOR WALLY signs began to circulate outside the oak-paneled Atlanta courtroom, where former University of Georgia Football Coach Wally Butts’s $10 million libel suit against the Saturday Evening Post was in its second week of testimony. Whether the Georgia football fans in the jury box agreed with the Georgia football fans waving the signs, would only come clear with this week’s verdict.But witness after witness had already handed down an unofficial decision. For the manner in which it put together last spring’s “The Story of a College Football Fix” — an article that accused Butts of trying to rig a Georgia-Alabama football game — the proud old Post stood convicted of careless journalism.

Only Memory. Testimony from both sides drew a picture of a magazine that had rushed headlong into print with a story only superficially checked. By the Post’s own admission, the story’s validty rested almost entirely on notes taken by Atlanta Insurance Salesman George Burnett, who said he had accidentally eavesdropped on a pre-game telephone conversation in which Georgia’s Butts seemed to be spilling Georgia football secrets to Paul (“Bear”) Bryant, head coach at the University of Alabama. But when the Post sent Freelance Reporter Frank Graham Jr. down to Atlanta, the salesman could only quote from memory as he told his story of skulduggery. The notes he had taken, he said, had been impounded by the University of Georgia.

For both Writer Graham and the Post, Burnett’s memory seemed more than enough to go on. Neither bothered to go over the story with Wally Butts or Bear Bryant—on the grounds that they would only deny it. Nor did anyone consult Burnett’s sometime business partner, John Carmichael, who said he knew all about the intercepted phone call and had seen the notes. No one at the Post deemed it necessary to study moving pictures of the Georgia-Alabama game —which might have supported, or cast serious doubt on the suspicion that the game had been fixed. (Alabama won it, 35-0.) No one talked to members of the Alabama team.

Certain Skepticism. In court the accuracy of parts of the Post article was repeatedly challenged, not only by witnesses for Butts, but also by witnesses for the defense—including Burnett. Georgia Trainer Sam Richwine and Georgia End Mickey Babb joined others who disclaimed direct quotations attributed to them in the story. Writer Graham’s astonishing excuse was that re-creating quotes is a “common practice in journalism.” Carmichael testified that the Burnett notes produced in court were not the same ones that his former associate had shown to him.

Nor was the Post defense detectibly strengthened by depositions from Post Editor Clay Blair Jr. and Post Senior Editor Roger Kahn. In his statement, Kahn confessed to a “certain skepticism” about the Burnett story and said that he had urged Writer Graham to “be careful.” Editor Blair’s statement acknowledged both his own authority to kill the story and his decision not to do so—a decision that apparently fitted Blair’s program of rejuvenating the ailing Post by “sophisticated muckraking,” and his ambition “to provoke people, make them mad.”

Against the apparent imperfections in the Post story and the magazine’s hasty journalism, the Atlanta jury could weigh the testimony of an array of witnesses called to the stand by Post Attorney Welborn Cody—among them Georgia President O. C. Aderhold and members of the school’s athletic board. Butts, they said, was a man of “bad character”; they testified that they would not believe him under oath. One after another, they characterized the former Georgia coach as a man who dabbled in loan companies on the side and numbered known professional gamblers among his friends. William C. Hartman, who served as Georgia’s backfield coach until 1957, testified that in November 1960 he and a group of university alumni had urged Butts to resign as Georgia football coach. They had been disturbed, said Hartman, by reports of frequent Butts appearances “at nightclubs in the company of girls.”

Casual Journalism. Though his character had been questioned by the president of the very university where he had served so long, Butts and his lawyers were able to offer quick rebuttal. Dr. Frank Rose, an ordained Disciples of Christ minister, who is now president of the University of Alabama, testified that he had carefully investigated the charges. He had found no evidence, said Dr. Rose, that any information of value had been passed between Butts and Bryant. And he had said as much in a letter to President Aderhold.

“Is everything you have testified so far in this case true, so help you God?” Butts’s attorney William Schroder asked his client as he wound up his case. “Yes, sir,” said Wally Butts. This week, the only questions that remained were whether the jury believed him and, if it did, just how much the Post’s casual journalism had damaged his reputation.