JOURNALIST CASE REVEALS CULTURE DIVISIONS

This week, a Dawson County jury acquitted citizen-journalist Nydia Tisdale of felony charges of obstruction of an officer three years after she was dragged screaming from a GOP political rally at a local pumpkin farm.

Tisdale was convicted on misdemeanor obstruction charges and still faces the prospect of jail time or a fine, but the verdict came as a modest relief to advocates for press freedoms and government accountability. It also illuminated deep divisions in our culture.

To some, Tisdale is a hero — a tireless, unblinking advocate for the First Amendment, shining her light on government officials. To others, especially in deeply conservative Dawson County, she is an outside agitator — a gold-digging troublemaker with no respect for law enforcement or regard for private property.

I sought local residents’ opinions prior to the verdict among the members of “Focus on Dawson,” a local interest Facebook group. Pretty soon my cup runneth over.

“I have yet to hear of anyone in Dawson have anything good to say about someone who comes into our community to cause problems,” one local resident wrote. “She goes places looking to cause problems, then cries foul afterward looking for money.”

“An officer in uniform asked her multiple times to leave and she acted like a unemployed 20-year-old, video game-playing liberal protester,” another offered.

For the unaware, a quick summary:

In August 2014, Tisdale, a Fulton County resident, was forcibly removed from a Republican rally at Burt’s Pumpkin Farm, a Dawsonville tourist spot where she had come to record speeches by Gov. Nathan Deal and other top GOP candidates.

During the rally, farm owner Johnny Burt was approached by Republican staffers and asked to object to Tisdale’s presence. When approached by rally organizers, Tisdale said co-owner Kathy Burt had given her permission to record. A Dawson County sheriff ’s captain came next, forced her out and had her arrested.

Local opinion of Tisdale was further colored when she won a $200,000 judgment in federal court against Cumming in neighboring Forsyth County for a 2012 incident where longtime Mayor H. Ford Gravitt ordered police to have her removed from a public meeting. In 2016, she announced she would file suit against Dawson County over the Burt’s Farm incident.

Resident David Hopkins

said the trial treads on delicate ground for Dawson County.

“This is a small, rural town and the Burts are a pillar of the community,” he said. “It’s a lot of old families, country folks that have been here for generations. They know each other, back each other. It’s a very tightknit community.”

It’s also a community undergoing a dramatic and existential change.

As the century dawned, Dawson County had a population of 16,000. Today it has grown to more than 22,300. That’s a 39 percent increase in less than two decades. By comparison, Georgia has grown in population just 6 percent since 2000.

One resident I spoke to said longtime residents’ suspicion of the new arrivals factored into the fury over Tisdale.

Hopkins knows Tisdale and supports her. “She is a very decent and good person,” he said.

But when her arrest hit Atlanta media, the Burts and their community were shown in an uncomplimentary light. People dug in and got protective, Hopkins said. “There is no place it was ever going to end up but in court,” he said. “This is a tribal dispute at the county level.”

Deep distrust of media

That Tisdale was identified as a member of the media, did not help her cause. Dawson County last year voted 85 percent for Donald Trump, making it one of the deepest red counties in the state. Throughout the campaign and his first year in office, Trump has routinely criticized the news media to loud applause from supporters.

According to a survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center from earlier this year, just 11 percent of Republicans say they trust the information they get from national news media. Local news organizations fair a lot better, but only by comparison. Fully three-quarters of GOP voters don’t trust their local press either.

The partisan divide has widened dramatically in the past year, according to Pew polling.

In 2016, strong majorities of Democrats and Republicans agreed the press did a good job keeping government officials accountable. But in 2017, their paths diverged. Suddenly 89 percent of Democrats back a strong media watchdog role, while just 42 percent of Republicans feel that way.

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Nydia Tisdale was convicted of misdemeanor obstruction charges stemming from a 2014 political rally.