Murder of a Journalist: The True Story of the Death of Donald Ring Mellett

2. Mellett in Canton

14 · murder of a journalist· 14 · 2 Mellett in Canton D on Mellett went to Canton feeling that it might be his last chance in the newspaper business. At this point in life, he considered himself a failure. He had not finished college and had failed twice as a newspaper editor. Competitor that he was, Mellett wanted a successful career in journalism. He couldn’t be blamed for comparing himself to his brothers, who were in the same profession . Two had press jobs in Washington, one owned a successful printing company, and even Lloyd, four years younger, was a wire service reporter in indianapolis. Failure might mean going back to indianapolis and that salesman’s job in his brother’s printing company . Don Mellett had to succeed in Canton.1 The new job Jim Cox offered at the Canton Daily News was an indication of what the publisher must have seen as Mellett’s forte: his experience on the business side of a daily paper. Cox hired Don to be the paper’s business manager, not a journalist. He wanted the Daily News to be profitable and saw in his new business manager someone who might be able to achieve this goal. Cox’s approach to selling newspapers was not as extreme as those of Joseph Pulitzer. He didn’t buy into the screaming headlines or oversized photographs and didn’t advocate any real changes in layout or typography. mellett in canton · 15 Don Mellett believed in and practiced “new” journalism, where the business office assumed increased importance. This coincided with the industrialization of newspapers and the rise of corporate ownership whereby several properties were owned by large syndicates, like Cox’s News League. Previously, the industry had been fractured, each paper often a reflection of the publisher’s individual partisan and sometimes quirky views. Anyone who could write could be a reporter. Profits were often razor thin or nonexistent. That changed with corporate management. Newspaper publishing became a business and was no longer a Jeffersonian passion. Its main objective was to secure as much advertising revenue as possible. And as profit became a driving force, business managers assumed a greater role in determining a paper’s content. Don had seen his father’s and his own papers fail financially and clearly understood the importance of employing sound business practices. He understood his job: “Jim Cox sent me in here to get his paper out of the red, and I’m going to do it.” Cox did set limits, however. He wrote to Timken in October 1925 explaining what he was trying to give Canton: “We are trying to give you a decent newspaper. We might have made . . . a yellow sheet out of it, but I will not run that kind of paper.”2 This new business model coincided with new attitudes among journalists regarding the press’s social responsibilities. Reporters of the 1890s were told to keep their opinions out of their stories, but by the 1920s editors began to advocate interpretive reporting to help readers understand complex issues. To separate fact from opinion, editors made bylines commonplace, allowing readers to decide for themselves which reporters provided the right mix of fact and opinion. However, what was good for a newspaper’s bottom line was easily confused with what it considered to be the public good.3 So those on the sharp end of an editorial or exposé were not enthusiastic supporters of this new brand of journalism. The January 1, 1925, edition greeted the new year with a guest editorial written by Canton mayor Charles M. Ball, a Republican, who had ascended to the office from the city council when Mayor Curtis was removed by the governor. Ball wrote, “The efforts to clean the city of vice and crime will be continued, and every effort made 16 · murder of a journalist to make Canton the best place to live,” thereby setting the tone and mission for the Daily News. Don, who had an outgoing, salesman’s personality, wasted no time in becoming an active participant in the city’s civic, social, and political scene. He moved his family into a rented home on the corner of Broad Avenue NW and Crown Place. He and Florence became active in the largest Presbyterian congregation in Canton, where Don taught a sunday school class and they were among the thirty-five young adults who attended the special Centennial Class...