Knoxville, Tennessee, 37996, United States
John received a Bachelor's degree from University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1893.
Knoxville, Tennessee, 37996, United States
John received a Bachelor's degree from University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1893.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Give-You-John-Netherland-Heiskell/dp/1258664976/?tag=prabook0b-20
John Netherland Heiskell was born on November 2, 1872 in Rogersville, Tennessee, United States to Carrick White Heiskell, a lawyer, and Eliza Ayre (Netherland) Heiskell. An uncle of Heiskell was a member of the Confederate Congress. Heiskell spent his childhood in Memphis, Tennessee.
John received a Bachelor's degree from University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1893.
After graduating, Heiskell took a position as a news reporter for the Knoxville Tribune. De Mott recounts a story about one of Heiskell's assignments for the Tribune. After witnessing the hanging of a black man, Heiskell penned the headline, "Allen Cousan Dies Bravely." Despite Heiskell's objections, his editor reworded the headline to read, "By the Neck and By the Law / Allen Cousan Dies." De Mott observes that this assignment "foreshadowed the firm stand that [Heiskell] would take against the violence advocated by many opposed to the integration of Little Rock's schools in the 1950s." Soon after this incident, Heiskell moved to the Knoxville Journal, assuming the position of city editor. Returning to Memphis soon afterward, Heiskell reported to work at the Commercial Appeal. He was a reporter for this paper until 1899, when he moved to Chicago and joined the Associated Press there. A year later, he assumed the role of bureau chief at the Louisville, Kentucky office of the Associated Press.
In 1902 Heiskell's family took over the Arkansas Gazette and Heiskell became the editor-in-chief. His brother Frederick took the position of managing editor. Frederick William Allsopp, the business manager of the Gazette, complimented Heiskell's editorial integrity. Decades after the Heiskell family's acquisition of the Arkansas Gazette, Harry Ashmore (an executive editor of the paper) offered this comment about John N. Heiskell: "He offered the usual announcement that he considered the newspaper a public trust... Generations of assorted Arkansas demagogues discovered that this was not a self-serving advertisement but an irrevocable statement of fact." Heiskell himself explained his periodical's purpose on the op-ed page of the Gazette, as quoted by De Mott: "Instead of devoting itself to the exploitation of persons, it aims to be a clearinghouse of news and opinions." For Heiskell, maintaining editorial integrity meant separating the business end of things from the publication's content.
Heiskell was eighty-five years old during the tumultuous school deadlock. Amazingly, Heiskell remained editor-in-chief of the Gazette until 1970. After Heiskell's death, his son-in-law Hugh Patterson assumed leadership of the paper. In 1991 the Gazette ceased to publish, merging with another newspaper to become the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
John was a prominent editor. Throughout his career in newspapers, Heiskell would use his position to improve local and state governments. A paper he wrote on Shakespeare earned him a gold medal and an article he penned about a football game brought him two dollars which was quite respectable for his day.
In 1958 Heiskell's Gazette received a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service "for demonstrating the highest qualities of civic leadership, journalistic responsibility, and moral courage in the face of mounting public tension."
While Heiskell spoke out against the persecution of Southern blacks, he was a solid supporter of racial segregation, as was handed down by the Supreme Court in the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling. He once wrote that "no amount of education, position, or financial status could put blacks 'on a plane of equality with the higher race.' " He called for education for black people, but protested when one attempted to join a whites-only golf club in Little Rock. Heiskell opposed lynching out of what De Mott describes as a "lifelong commitment to the orderly administration of justice." He went so far as to write that "lynching can be put down if we kill a few lynchers by process of law." He also considered black troops to be a public threat during World War I. Heiskell's conviction that education was directly tied to success led him to support improvements in public education. De Mott goes on to explain that he "consistently argued that the state's shortcomings constituted a significant handicap in its quest for economic gain and general prosperity."
Heiskell had no tolerance for alcoholic over-indulgence or jazz music. He was also known to advise farmers in terms of crop choices, and to comment upon the academic programs of local universities.
John married Wilhelmina Mann on June 28, 1910. They had four children: Elizabeth, Louise, John Jr., Carrick.
