Red and white I'M FOR WALLY signs began to circulate outside the oak-paneled Atlanta courtroom, where former University of Georgia Football Coach Wally Butts's $10 million libel suit against the Saturday Evening Post was in its second week of testimony. Whether the Georgia football fans in the jury box agreed with the Georgia football fans waving the signs, would only come clear with this week's verdict.But witness after witness had already handed down an unofficial decision. For the manner in which it put together last spring's "The Story of a College Football Fix" — an article that accused Butts of trying to rig a Georgia-Alabama football game — the proud old Post stood convicted of careless journalism.
Only Memory. Testimony from both sides drew a picture of a magazine that had rushed headlong into print with a story only superficially checked. By the Post's own admission, the story's validty rested almost entirely on notes taken by Atlanta Insurance Salesman George Burnett, who said he had accidentally eavesdropped on a pre-game telephone conversation in which Georgia's Butts seemed to be spilling Georgia football secrets to Paul ("Bear") Bryant, head coach at the University of Alabama. But when the Post sent Freelance Reporter Frank Graham Jr. down to Atlanta, the salesman could only quote from memory as he told his story of skulduggery. The notes he had taken, he said, had been impounded by the University of Georgia.
For both Writer Graham and the Post, Burnett's memory seemed more than enough to go on. Neither bothered to go over the story with Wally Butts or Bear Bryant—on the grounds that they would only deny it. Nor did anyone consult Burnett's sometime business partner, John Carmichael, who said he knew all about the intercepted phone call and had seen the notes. No one at the Post deemed it necessary to study moving pictures of the Georgia-Alabama game —which might have supported, or cast serious doubt on the suspicion that the game had been fixed. (Alabama won it, 35-0.) No one talked to members of the Alabama team.
Certain Skepticism. In court the accuracy of parts of the Post article was repeatedly challenged, not only by witnesses for Butts, but also by witnesses for the defense—including Burnett. Georgia Trainer Sam Richwine and Georgia End Mickey Babb joined others who disclaimed direct quotations attributed to them in the story. Writer Graham's astonishing excuse was that re-creating quotes is a "common practice in journalism." Carmichael testified that the Burnett notes produced in court were not the same ones that his former associate had shown to him.
Nor was the Post defense detectibly strengthened by depositions from Post Editor Clay Blair Jr. and Post Senior Editor Roger Kahn. In his statement, Kahn confessed to a "certain skepticism" about the Burnett story and said that he had urged Writer Graham to "be careful." Editor Blair's statement acknowledged both his own authority to kill the story and his decision not to do so—a decision that apparently fitted Blair's program of rejuvenating the ailing Post by "sophisticated muckraking," and his ambition "to provoke people, make them mad."