John Shearer: Working For Lee Anderson For 15 Years

Back in May 1984, I was spending the night at friend Kurt Schmissrauter’s house, and his mother, Virginia, woke us up the next morning to say that my father, Dr. Wayne Shearer, had excitedly called.

My father wanted to let me know that someone had called the house looking for me. His name was Lee Anderson, and my father, of course, knew who he was.

At the time, I had been graduated from the University of Georgia for nine months and had been unable to find a professional job, although I was continuing to work for pro Billy Buchanan at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club.

So when Mr. Anderson called me to say that my letter I had written him caught his eye and that he wanted to interview me about a job as a possible news staff writer at the Chattanooga News-Free Press, I was ecstatic.

Why he hired me – a non-journalism major – following a delightful interview with him and city editor Julius Parker and after I provided him a fresh writing sample and took his grammar test over the weekend, I will never know. But I will be forever grateful.

After starting at the paper a couple of weeks later, I quickly became familiar with the mannerly style of Mr. Anderson and all the roles he held.

As editor, he was in charge of the news copy desk and the city editors and reporters. Back when I started and the Free Press had a larger-than-typical staff due to its heavy coverage of local news and events, this may have numbered close to 35 people, including sweet secretary Linda Weaver.

He would regularly suggest a story idea either to the city editors or a reporter, often after he would receive a news or feature tip, but he spent much of his time writing editorials every morning for the afternoon paper.

Despite this full schedule, his office door was always open and I never heard him tell a reporter, city editor or copy desk person a single time, “I am too busy. Don’t bother me right now.”

Of his writing, he had more of a straight-forward style, rather than trying to be a turner of creative phrases or a natural storyteller, as some executive editors or publishers who have their own weekly columns are. In fact, except for maybe an occasional travel trip or special visit to somewhere like the White House, his byline was only occasionally in the paper in later years, even though it was obviously at the top of the editorial page masthead.

But everyone seemed to know who he was.  Someone had told me that, years earlier, people in the Chattanooga area had tried to get him to run for political office, such as Congress, but he declined.

His editorials regarding national conservative and Republican ideology and the Christian inspiration found on the editorial page won him much praise from those with similar beliefs and principles.

He was actually different from many editors like the Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee, who wanted newspapers to be crusaders for justice and right the wrongs of the world through investigative reporting.

Mr. Anderson generally only wanted damaging news covered if it was public record, such as an arrest or lawsuit, even though he certainly encouraged his reporters to hustle to get the stories. That was, of course, also publisher Roy McDonald’s philosophy.

That style won Mr. Anderson and the paper supporters, who gave the Free Press more scoops or exclusives because people knew he wanted his reporters to be fair and because of the far-reaching Sunday News-Free Press.

The style of not usually ruffling the feathers also had a few detractors in the larger journalism community. But no one ever criticized Mr. Anderson the man that I heard.

I cannot remember the exact issue, but there was a story or some coverage in the paper in the late 1980s that some thought was insensitive to the black community in some way. I recall that two or three of the black leaders came to meet with Mr. Anderson and Mr. McDonald.

While angry or concerned when they arrived, the visitors left the meeting realizing that the paper was certainly not insensitive to the issue and cared for the betterment of Chattanooga. And I know the visitors’ change of heart was due in some part to their realization of Mr. Anderson’s strong sense of fairness.

Another fact I recall about Mr. Anderson was that he read the paper in its entirety every day when he was editor and later publisher. I have not forgotten when he came back to congratulate me on my first byline story in 1984, or when he would kindly compliment other stories or share with me a connection he had to a topic I had covered.

And, of course, there were unfortunately a few times he would point out a mistake in one of my stories. But he always did that in a non-demeaning manner.

Mr. Anderson was also Mr. Organization, and he managed to stay that way even after he took on the additional duty of publisher after Mr. McDonald’s death in 1990. His desk was always immaculate, and he even let us reporters go in there and use his computer so we could type stories, obituaries or cutlines for photographs while watching a sporting event on TV on Saturdays, when he was off after briefly coming in during the morning.

How he also taught Sunday school in front of a large crowd of adults every Sunday at First Presbyterian Church amazed me. I always thought his real gift was in oral communication, and he might have made a great political commentator on a radio or TV news show – even with his personality that had a nicer edge than a typical “talking head.”

But he certainly influenced in a positive manner many people – including me – with the jobs he did have.

I remember when I shockingly found out I was one of those being laid off as the combined staff was being reduced after the Times and Free Press merger was announced in late 1998, he called me and the others into his office individually. He wanted to tell us that the layoffs bothered him and that he was doing what he could to get the situation reversed so we could keep our jobs, even though he was no longer the top decision maker.

Even after I left the paper in 1999 after the merger took effect, he helped me, including by writing a letter of recommendation or two for me after he began focusing more on just writing editorials for the Free Press editorial page.

When I heard he was retiring in 2012 at the “young” age of 86, I decided I wanted to try to interview him and write a story for chattanoogan.com. With John Wilson’s blessing, I tried to contact him through the Times Free Press.

At first the paper was not interested, but somehow I emailed editor Alison Gerber, and she called me back one Friday night. We had a nice and brief talk, and she said to go ahead and do the story, but to be careful with Mr. Anderson and realize that his memory was starting to slow down slightly.

I called him back, drove down from Knoxville one weekday morning and had a delightful talk with him. He just started off discussing his time at the paper in a chronological manner dating to his teen-age years in the 1940s, and I was able to ask him a few other questions as we went along.

I even got him a little on audiotape and took some pictures of him and his longtime secretary, Linda Weaver.

It was a great morning for me, and I enjoyed some nice closure to an aspect of my past.

I was driving down to Chattanooga this past Thursday morning to visit my father and I heard the commentators and guests on 102.3 talking about Mr. Anderson in the past tense. I knew he had unfortunately died after a battle in recent years with dementia.

When I got back home and later looked in the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Friday paper, there was a nice six-column headline that said, “Lee Anderson, Chattanooga newspaper ‘icon,” dies.”

I agreed with that headline, and realize how much richer my life has been as a journalist, writer and person after having worked for him.

Jcshearer2@comcast.net