Jack Nelson read an ad in the Biloxi Daily Herald for a sportswriter. The teen, who'd been a high school sports editor, applied.
His editor soon recognized a trait that would become a trademark of Mr. Nelson's storied journalism career, one that included the 1960 Pulitzer Prize.
"If he thought there was an injustice or fraud being perpetrated, he pursued it with fairness and integrity. Investigative journalism is everywhere today, but that wasn't the case when he was doing it, " said journalist Barbara Matusow, his wife of 34 years.
Besides his journalistic acumen, Mr. Nelson wielded another valuable weapon -- courage.
Once at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Crossroads, Miss., he demanded organizers guide him and other reporters to safety. Some in the crowd had grown menacing.
"There were toughs advancing on them with metal bats and stuff like that," his wife said. "He demanded the Klan organizers protect them. He had a way of shaking his finger."
And of course, a way with the written word.
"He could always look at something and see the good and the bad and do a good job," said family friend Carol Muldawer of Atlanta. "He was a mentor to many."
On Wednesday morning, Jack Nelson died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 80.
For 12 years, Mr. Nelson worked for The Atlanta Constitution.He won the Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles on abuses at Georgia's hospital for the mentally ill.
In 1965, the Los Angeles Times hired Mr. Nelson to open the Times' Atlanta bureau. His coverage of the civil rights movement included "Bloody Sunday," an incident in which state troopers and local authorities clubbed and tear-gassed 600 civil rights marchers en route to Montgomery, Ala.
In 1970, Mr. Nelson joined the Times' Washington bureau. Five years later, he became the paper's Washington bureau chief. He held the post two decades, from 1975 to 1995. He spent 35 years with The Times.
His coverage of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and the 1970s Watergate scandal, elevated the Times' status as a journalistic powerhouse, according to an article that appeared Wednesday in that paper.
Andrew Young, former Atlanta mayor and U.S. ambassador, said the prose of Mr. Nelson and others gave the civil rights movement the necessary national exposure.
"As a Southerner, he covered it honestly, courageously and famously," he said. "He was with us at Selma and down in Albany. A lot of the reporters put their lives on the line just like the protesters."
In a late 2000 interview, Mr. Nelson summed up his involvement:
"A reporter likes to pride himself on being as objective as he can, and tell both sides of the story. Well, there's hardly two sides to a story of a man being denied the basic right to vote. . . . There's no two sides to a story of a lynching. A lynching is a lynching."
During the civil rights movement, Jack Bass was the Columbia, S.C., bureau chief for the Charlotte Observer. He also was a stringer for the New York Times and Washington Post. He and Mr. Nelson, both Nieman Fellows, developed a professional relationship. They shared tips and sources.
The journalists co-authored "Orangeburg Massacre," a book that chronicled the 1968 incident in which police fired into a crowd of protesters at South Carolina State College. Three were killed.
"We'd get together for five to 10 days at a time to write ," said Mr. Bass of Charleston, S.C. "It was intense, but our styles meshed. We decided to adopt a style that let the story tell itself."
Fair, accurate, dogged and determined -- that's how Mr. Bass described Mr. Nelson, who authored several books. He last saw Mr. Nelson in January. He was ill, but still able to walk his dog. The noted journalist and Army veteran told Mr. Bass he was not afraid of death.
Son Mike Nelson of Lilburn called his father an "old-school journalist" who practiced the craft when you had to be aggressive.
"He was a great human being and a great reporter," his son said. "There is no place for a guy like him to become what he became because there is so much news out there. He told me to quit listening to the Fox News channel. He was the real deal."
Additional survivors include a daughter, Karen Arnold of Grayson; six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
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