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All of North Carolina: |
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The Art of Fraternal Journalism
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William Allen White of Emporia, Kansas, and Harry Golden of Charlotte, North Carolina, practiced the special magic of personal journalism. Their bright commentary was often more memorable than what they were writing about. Subscribers might be fuzzy on what these journalists were into, but they could quickly quote from their commentary. Those two became world-famous for being masters of personal journalism.
Richard Edward Carter, better known as Ric, is charged with reporting, writing, photographing, researching, interviewing and superintending that unique publication called The North Carolina Mason. He stands tall in the field of fraternal journalism, a profession practiced exclusively among fraternal organizations worldwide.
Usually their publications have controlled circulation, that is, most subscribers receive their fraternal newspaper or magazine paid out of the dues package. The advantage there is that no one every cancels his subscription. The disadvantage is that no one is forced to read it.
Which means that the one-man publisher behind The North Carolina Mason is driven to deliver, six times every year, a powerful, articulate, sensitive, accurate and fervent newspaper. In short, a keeper.
Search the personal papers of the almost 50,000 subscribers and you will surely find back issues. Whether in Raleigh or Washington where their publication is written, or in distant places where fate took them, NC Masons consider The North Carolina Mason to be the cable tow that binds them to their close Masonic friends.
Carter takes orders from no one and everyone. From himself, of course. He conscientiously packs as much news into each issue as constraints permit. He begins work on each new issue with a stack of good stuff left over from the previous issue.
He counsels also with Theophilus Walton Clapp III, NC Grand Secretary, the Grand Master, committee heads, wise old owls with advice worth heeding, hundreds of lodge masters and secretaries, and a broad spectrum of visitors, callers and e-mail authors.
All want a piece of Ric Carter.
It was the same for Reynold Slade Davenport. He was editor of The North Carolina Mason for more than 14 years before Ric Carter. How many people do you know who wrote their own obituary? Davenport did it and it appeared intact in the May/June 2000 issue. A past master of two NC lodges, his knowledge of The Code was matchless.
He was the author of Something Else, a column he wrote for almost 40 years for The Bagpipe, the publication of the New Bern Scottish Rite Bodies. He invented characters like Jimrod Q. Waxpillow and Bobby Q. Gryle whose offbeat, hilarious and matchless tales popped up regularly in The North Carolina Mason. He mentored Ric Carter and it shows.
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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