A question answered

By Dante Mozie
Special to chipsquinn.org

Posted: Nov. 5, 2008

Dante Mozie

The nervousness kicked in the moment I left the Chips Quinn orientation program in Washington, D.C.

Even though the panels, staff and reporters offered great advice during orientation, I still had no idea what to expect during my first newspaper internship. I had few expectations -- and many worries.

As I drove toward Florence, Ala., the butterflies in my stomach were fluttering at full speed. And the rural and country roads I traveled didn’t help; they made me feel that I was in the middle of nowhere.

“What have I gotten myself into?” I thought.

Mustering as much confidence as I could, I arrived at the Times Daily with everything I thought I needed to do my best work, including my AP Stylebook, recorder, notepads and pens.

I walked into a cozy newsroom set up to cover the area known as the Shoals region: a few offices, meeting spaces and numerous cubicles for the newspaper’s reporters, copy editors and other staff. We also shared space with WHNT-TV, a Huntsville, Ala., television station.

My first morning on the job was quiet. I met the reporters and got acquainted with the building.

But things picked up in the afternoon when I asked to go with a reporter to an accident in the Natchez Trace Parkway. A car swerving off a road into a swift-flowing creek was carried downstream a good distance. One person died.

That accident would be the first of many stories I would cover in my 10 weeks with the newspaper. I wrote stories about bike and skateboarding safety, fundraisers for cystic fibrosis research, county elections, and how marching bands across Alabama gear up for football season.

The story that caught my interest more than any other involved a tiny town across the Tennessee River from Florence called Muscle Shoals. When most people think about black R&B music they think of the “Motown Sound” or the familiar tunes made in New York, Los Angeles or Memphis, Tenn.

But Muscle Shoals actually was dubbed the “Hit Recording Capital of the World.” Many hit R&B singles were made there, including Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally” and Aretha Franklin’s first big hit, “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Loved You).”

My three-part series on Muscle Shoals and the R&B industry also addressed the notion of racial harmony between the musicians and artists, both inside and outside of the studios. In a state known for segregation and prejudice during the civil rights movement, such harmony was extraordinary. The musicians and artists I interviewed said that it had existed in the Shoals area since they were kids.

Leaving the paper was more emotional than I thought it would be. During my final week, just about everyone thanked and congratulated me on a job well done.

I now understand why many employees have worked at the paper for so long. The newsroom is not just a workplace where people crank out stories, it’s a family. Even as an intern, I felt adopted into that family, and I’m grateful for that.

Reflecting, too, on that long drive to Alabama and my initial question, “What have I gotten myself into,” I now have an answer.

I got myself into an experience of a lifetime, thanks to the Chips Quinn Scholars program, a program dedicated to improving the skills and interests of young journalists such as myself.

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