Porter Harvey
Porter
Harvey graduated from Emory University, studied literature at
Harvard, and worked for the New York Post, Nashville Tennessean,
and Birmingham Post. But it was his dream to own a weekly newspaper
- one that would be concerned with the stories neighbors discussed
over cups of coffee and across backyard fences.
Harvey established his local paper, The Advertiser-Gleam, and
cast it in his own image - neighborly, folksy, fair, and vital
to the community. Named for the way the light "gleamed"
on Lake Guntersville, the paper first came out in 1941. Although
it got off to a slow start and was initially delivered out of
a little red wagon, Harvey persevered, bought out the competition,
and forged a bond with his readers that few other newspapermen
have enjoyed.
High-tech and glossy the paper is not, and that's what makes it
so appealing, personal, and "down-home." A subscriber
once told Porter Harvey that reading the Gleam is "like having
a conversation with an old friend you haven't seen in years."
Dozens of national newspapers, magazines, and television shows
have dispatched reporters to the offices of The Advertiser-Gleam
to chron-icle one of the nation's most unusual and imaginative
newspapermen.
There's still no mistaking The Advertiser-Gleam for USA Today.
The Porter Harvey tradition continues. No story, regardless of
its importance, gets more than a one-column headline. Headlines
from recent editions include "Big Runoff Turnout Goes In
Fob's Favor," a story about a primary election; "Didn't
Get His Garbage So He Took it To Them," a report on how a
local citizen protested being skipped by the garbage truck; "A
Cat Burglar, Maybe?", an article that detailed the theft
of 29 canaries, parakeets, and finches from a local residence;
and "His Green Bean Teepees are Stopping Traffic," a
feature about an imaginative gardener.
Highly respected by his colleagues, Harvey also served as past
president of the Alabama Press Association. The twice-weekly Gleam
has seen little change since its inception and is still family-owned,
with son Sam Harvey as editor.
