Goodloe Sutton

Alabama political reporter Chip Brownlee noticed and reprinted an editorial Sutton published in the February 14, 2019, issue of his newspaper. The editorial, in which he called for the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, received international attention.

On July 1, 2019, Sutton sold The Democrat-Reporter and retired. The new owner, Tommy Wells, said that Sutton "doesn't even have a key anymore."

This is only one of a series of recent inflammatory editorials in The Democrat-Reporter; according to state Sen. Bobby Singleton and Rep. Artis J. McCampbell, "He's been making those kind of racist epithets for a long time." Under an anonymous byline, a 2012 editorial read, "What will happen when the Ku Klux Klan is taken over by black people trying to run from the federal government?" A 2016 editorial called then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton 'a fat aft woman with a tubby tummy and jowls of a hog.'" He also called her "fat witch (or female dog)" and "little Miss Piggy," and expressed gratitude to Russia for helping Trump get elected. An unnamed black mayor "displayed her African heritage by not enforcing civilized law." In a 2013 editorial, Sutton wrote that "Slavery was a good lesson for the Jews. They didn't act right, so God punished them by letting others conquer and enslave them... There are stories which publishing companies won't print about how the black people were banished into the wilderness of Africa because God hated them."

As a result of his reporting and editorials Sutton was awarded the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award and the Society of Professional Journalists' Sunshine Award. He was inducted in 2007 into the University of Southern Mississippi's School of Mass Communication and Journalism Hall of Fame. In 2009, he received the Distinguished Community Journalist Award from Auburn University. Alabama representative Earl F. Hilliard read on the floor of Congress a declaration praising him, saying: "His story is a shining example of the best and the brightest which occurs in America when a single citizen has the bravery to stand alone, in the face of mounting pressure and odds, and stands up for justice and equality." He and his wife were also the subject of a People magazine article.

Alabama political columnist Kyle Whitmire, who had worked at The Democrat-Reporter as a young man, published a column in which he speculated that Sutton, 80 at the time of the editorial's release, had gone into sharp decline since the death of his wife in 2003 and might be suffering from dementia, alcoholism, or both. Sutton's editorial was criticized by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, both of Alabama's U.S. Senators, and numerous other public figures, many of whom called on Sutton to resign. The University of Southern Mississippi removed him from its Mass Communication Hall of Fame and "strongly condemned" his remarks. Auburn University's Journalism Advisory Council rescinded the Distinguished Community Journalist Award Sutton had received in 2009. The Alabama Press Association censured Sutton, saying he "brought disgrace upon newspapers in Alabama and the profession," and suspended The Democrat-Reporter's membership in the organization.

In 1998, Sutton received widespread acclaim for articles exposing corruption in the Marengo County Sheriff's Office; he always credited his wife, Jean, "with laboring over courthouse records". These articles, many written by his wife, led to guilty pleas by Sheriff Roger Davis for extortion, soliciting a bribe, and failure to pay state income taxes on the extorted money, for which he received two concurrent 27-month sentences. For the series of articles with accompanying documentation Sutton was threatened; the Sheriff, according to Sutton, "started telling anyone who would listen that my oldest son was involved in drugs, my wife was having affairs and I was drunk all the time." He received death threats and lost circulation and $50,000 per year in advertising in his newspaper; a local church official told him to "lay off the sheriff". A deputy, Wilmer "Sonny" Breckenridge, threatened to plant drugs in Sutton's home, according to Sutton. He and his wife were randomly pulled over and harassed, as was their oldest son.

Sutton had run for office in Alabama's 7th congressional district as a Democrat in 1978, losing in the primary. After the favorable publicity received in 1998, he ran in District 72 of the Alabama House of Representatives as a Republican, but lost to the incumbent in the general election. He has been a registered Republican since at least the time of his most recent run for public office.

Goodloe Sutton graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi and was editor of the school's student newspaper, Student Printz. It was there he met his future wife, Jean Rodgers; they married in 1964 and had two sons, Howard Goodloe Sutton, Jr. and William Robert Sutton. Prior to taking over the family newspaper, the couple "founded and owned several local newspapers in Demopolis, Camden, Thomasville, and Sumter County, Alabama." Sutton returned to his hometown and purchased The Democrat-Reporter from his father in 1964, taking over as editor and publisher. His wife soon joined him as an investigative reporter, later Managing Editor, at the paper. Jean died in 2003 after complications related to cancer, leaving Sutton feeling "like a zombie" and not knowing "what to do", for several years afterwards.

Howard Goodloe Sutton (born January 31, 1939) is an American newspaper editor, publisher, and owner. From 1964 to 2019, he published The Democrat-Reporter, a small weekly newspaper in Linden, Alabama. Sutton was widely celebrated in 1998 for publishing over four years a series of articles that exposed corruption in the Marengo County Sheriff's Office; he received awards and commendations and was suggested as a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2019, Sutton once again became the focus of national attention when he wrote and published an editorial suggesting the Ku Klux Klan be revived to "clean out" Washington, D.C. He already had a local reputation for other, similarly inflammatory racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and homophobic editorials.

Howard Goodloe Sutton was born in Alabama in 1939, the son of Robert E. Sutton and Lorie Chrietzburg Sutton. His father was the editor of The Democrat-Reporter newspaper and bought it in 1917.