Frank Denton| Florida Times-Union
You probably think your opinions are your very own and superior to everyone elses, of course so you may not realize how much Mike Clark helped shape them.
Sure, you roll your eyes and rant and rave about your newspapers editorials and other opinions on these pages, and thats exactly what Mike intended in the 15 years he was the Times-Union editorial page editor until he retired in December.
The goal of editorials is not so much to convince you of one truth but rather to stimulate you to think about the issues and form your own opinions, and ideally to act on them with your behavior, your attitude, your money or your vote.
Communications experts have long understood that opinion journalism does not tell you what to think; it suggests what you think about and arms you with facts to interpret on your own. An editorial endorsement of a political candidate wont change your personal belief system, but it might well legitimize a candidate you hadnt taken seriously.
Fortunately, wielding such influence, Mike was the complete professional, built over almost a half century in journalism. After some years as a reporter, he was the Times-Unions reader advocate for 15 years, actively and assertively representing the readers in their interactions with the newspaper. Then he was editorial page editor those last 15 years.
As we admirers said in announcing a tribute to him: Eschewing any political extreme or special interest, he favored optimism over pessimism, civility over attack, fairness over foulness, good news as well as bad and, as in his earlier years, always the interests of the ordinary person on the street.
Mike didnt believe in sitting aloof in the media castle and tossing elite opinions out to the masses. As a way of adding diversity to the editorial board of staff and executives, he started the practice of adding rotating citizen board members and listening to them. Over the years, about 75 people served.
I remember one such member, a very conservative woman who had always lived in a small echo chamber of like-minded people, complaining after a few meetings that she had never before heard people talk as we did, with opinions and ideas ranging across a wide spectrum of experiences and beliefs.
Mike also conceived the E-mail Interactive Group comprised of as many as 4,000 loyal and diverse readers on whom we could call anytime to add their opinions on a specific issue or topic.
As editor of the Times-Union, I was Mikes boss for 10 years. Or I thought I was; Mike pretty much ran the editorial page on his own. Early on, I asked him whether we shouldnt diversify the pages daily Bible verse by rotating it with other faiths. Well … the Bible verse is still there.
And when I told him I believed we could represent a conservative viewpoint with a more thoughtful, substantial syndicated columnist than Ann Coulter, whom I considered lazy, shallow and mean-spirited, he said a sizable portion of readers would disagree strongly. Coulter stayed.
It wasnt a political judgment. After 10 years of working with him and hundreds of editorial board meetings, Im not sure I can categorize him politically. We used to tell our owners that we wanted the T-Us editorial positions to be generally center right, so maybe that comes closest to Mike.
I asked Mike what his toughest stance was, and he pointed to the multi-month investigation of the City Council ignoring the Sunshine Law. They all denied wrongdoing and it took examining the calendars of all 19 of them. A grand jury chastised the council and commended the T-U for its work.
When Mike retired, the current City Council thanked him for making the T-U a truer voice reflective of the full diversity of people and ideas that populate our city, and his calm and friendly demeanor and encyclopedic knowledge of local affairs will be greatly missed. … His contributions to civic discourse in Jacksonville and Northeast Florida have been monumental and will be long and gratefully remembered.
Mikes biggest regret was outside his control: the directive by the T-Us then owner to endorse Donald Trump in 2016. Knowing readers already had made up their minds, he would not have made any endorsement, as the paper did in 2008 for Obama-McCain.
On the positive side, where Mike always tried to be, I am proudest of comforting the afflicted, for those who lost babies before the first birthday, for victims of mental illness and suicide, for bringing Black history to light as Jacksonville history, for hiring four women and a Black male, for supporting the HRO, for writing about climate change before it was cool, for pushing smart justice reforms, for fighting blight in needy neighborhood.
So whether you know it or not, Mikes retirement in December has left a void in your and our communitys life, and now we owe him the cheer he always provided for worthy others on the Opinion page every Monday.
On April 1, 6-7 p.m., his admirers will hold a virtual celebration of Mike and his career. The event will be a benefit for the First Amendment Foundation, which shares and advances Mikes commitment to open government via Floridas open-government laws, continually under attack across the state and annually in the Legislature. Please join us. You may register at http://www.floridafaf.org.
Frank Denton is the retired editor of The Florida Times-Union and a member of the board of the First Amendment Foundation.