What President Jimmy Carter taught my late father — and me — about 'they say' sourcing in journalism

The author’s late father, Robert Burns, talks with President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalyann Carter in the White House in the late 1970s.

The conversation came rushing back to me sometime between the Carter grandchildren's heart-tugging memories and Andrew Young's magisterial closing eulogy Thursday during the funeral for President Jimmy Carter.

As about a 10-year-old boy I thrilled at the return of my father, Robert Burns, to Carroll, Iowa from a late 1970s trip to Washington, D.C. — and the White House. Dad then served as the general manager and writer of the “Potpourri” column at our family's newspaper, The Carroll Daily Times Herald.

Dad had chatted with President Carter during a press session with other media and Iowa leaders. He'd met Jimmy Carter, gotten the photo with the handshake at the White House.

Later, on his way out, and in a simpler time, when such exchanges could more easily happen, dad ran into Carter in a corridor of the White House. He talked with the president some more, and then pressed Carter. "They say, Mr. President" that your policies are hurting the economy, causing inflation, dad said in the lead-in to a question.

"Who are they?" Carter shot back, dad recalled the president saying. "Who are they?"

Dad was a detailed storyteller, and I eagerly absorbed every word of his account of meeting with the president. And I remembered all of it, after all, as my dad had talked with the commander in chief.

Overall, dad said, the meeting lifted him, but he was humbled, embarrassed, I think, that he pulled a "they say" on Carter. To be fair, dad, a gifted writer, was a general-interest and culture columnist at the paper, a side hustle of sorts to his primary responsibility as general manager. He was more businessman than journalist — the opposite of me. We were, oddly, sadly, built for each other's times in the industry.

On his time with Carter: Don't ever do that, ever, dad told me of his "they say." Come at people with the facts, the sources, who made the statement, the book or newspaper in which you read it. Never use an unsourced question when challenging anyone, much less the president of the United States, he said.

That conversation with dad stuck. We talked a lot about journalism and politics through the years at the family dinner table, places set for Republicans and Democrats, so I could process this as a child — to a degree.

As I interviewed hundreds of candidates and office holders decades later in my own career I often thought of my dad's "they say" encounter with Carter.

Simply put, I worked to never "they say" anyone.

Our future and former president Donald Trump often does not cite facts or sources, but he's improved on "they say" sourcing with Trump’s on-brand "many, many people are saying" contention before his verbal strutting or bullying, bringing more vagueness, and the present tense, into the mix.

Rest in peace, dad.

I never interviewed Jimmy Carter. I'm just a little too young for that. The first president I covered was George H.W. Bush.

But I did cover one of Carter's sons, Chip Carter, during the 2004 presidential race. Chip Carter strongly supported then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in his campaign for the Democratic nomination. That brought the younger Carter to Iowa — and Carroll.

Chip Carter, then 53, a Georgia-based international businessman who volunteered with his parents’ human rights- minded Carter Center, said he became involved with the Dean campaign originally because of the candidate’s strong opposition to the conduct of the war in Iraq.

“My father says you are not ever going to have peace by killing each other’s children, and I believe that,” Carter said.

Chip Carter said he was asked how long it would take to get the respect of the world back if President Bush is defeated in 2004?

“I said, ‘20 minutes,’” Carter said. “The world is so scared that George Bush might get re-elected that they will flock to Howard Dean or any Democrat that gets elected. All the new president has to do is treat those people with the respect they are due.”

Chip Carter said much of the world lives in poverty, a fact that creates many opportunities for recruiting terrorists.

One fourth of all the people on the Earth live on less than $1 per day, and more than half of all humans live on less than $2 a day, he said.

“We not only need to be fighting terrorism and trying to find bin Laden and doing that,” Carter said. “We need to join with the rest of the world to try to bring hope to this half of the world that has no hope.”

Speaking to the predominantly Democratic crowd in Carroll, Carter devoted a good deal of time to reminiscing about campaigns past.

For instance, former President Bill Clinton was Chip Carter’s speechwriter during the 1976 campaign.

Chip Carter told the Carroll crowd in the 2004 campaign that former President Carter, then 79, was still active, running three miles a day, and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter did tai chi every day.

He said Iowa is an important place for his family, and that his dad would always advocate Iowa’s position at the front of the line in the nominating process.

“I think we helped Iowa become famous in the presidential part as much as you guys helped put us into the white House,” Chip Carter said.

The Carter family received a great education traveling through Iowa meeting with people, he said.

“It’s cool to be able to say that your parents are your heroes,” Carter said of his father. “What he’s doing today is in large part because of what you guys did for him in 1976 and 1980.”

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(Douglas Burns, founder of The Iowa Mercury and a fourth-generation Iowa journalist from Carroll, is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Read dozens of the most talented writers in Iowa in just one place. The Iowa Writers' Collaborative spans the full state. It’s one of the biggest things going in Iowa journalism and writing now — and you don’t want to miss. This collaborative is — as the outstanding Quad Cities journalist Ed Tibbetts says — YOUR SUNDAY IOWA newspaper. )