Journalists are notoriously competitive, and they rarely get the praise they crave. So few events are more charged than the yearly awards dinner of the Chicago Headline Club, the local reporters’ fraternity, at which the club gives out its Peter Lisagor awards for exemplary journalism.
Actually, many people familiar with the paper’s role in Austin do dispute that. Dan Haley, publisher of the rival Austin Weekly News, says, “That the Headline Club would give an ethics award to the Austin Voice is appalling. I’m all for muckraking and for hanging tough, but the Voice is all about sensationalizing and rumor. There are times when the liberal media give a pass to papers that serve the African-American community, and here was such a situation. Somebody was clearly asleep at the switch.”
Cummings writes, edits, and helps to produce and deliver the paper; he also sells ads. Yet he minimizes his role. When talking about the paper, he often uses “we” instead of “I,” and he takes pains to pay homage to the rest of his staff–circulation managers Zack and Carol Burton, ad sales rep and receptionist Julie Edwards, her computer-specialist son Daryl, the ten or more delivery staff, and the 39-year-old Isaac Jones, who doubles as publisher and “photography director.” Cummings praises Jones, a native west-sider, for having a better grasp of the local mind-set. “Isaac possesses great knowledge of the lifestyle out here, and he gives me a frame of reference.”
Stories on drug dealer Rufus “the Weasel” Sims detailed his offenses and elaborate lifestyle–he drove a Rolls-Royce, wore diamond-studded sunglasses, and kept two luxury houses in the suburbs in addition to his Austin home. When Sims was indicted on federal drug and racketeering charges in 1992, he went on the lam. “Rufus was a very dashing young man,” says Cummings, who headlined the story Rufus on the Run…Or Pop Goes the Weasel. “But we didn’t want to add to his legend, so we parodied what he was doing.” In 1995 a federal judge sent Sims to prison for 27 years for drug-money laundering.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Cummings contends that he was driving by the Y one night shortly after the story appeared when his rear window was shot out. He assumes the culprit was the alleged drug kingpin, though Cummings never brought charges. The man was subsequently indicted for threatening to shoot another man.
Davis continued his cozy relationship with the Voice as he advanced from alderman to county commissioner to candidate for Congress. Isaac Jones moonlighted as Davis’s official photographer. Davis was frequently seen toting around copies of the Voice, and he once told Jones, “Brad is my biggest supporter.”
