Golden Owl Brandt Ayers publishes memoir covering the South in the civil rights era

Brandt Ayers, publisher of the Anniston Star in Alabama, has published a memoir "In Love with Defeat: the Making of a Southern Liberal."

Ayers has been the long-time editor/publisher of one of the South's last great progressive newspapers, the Anniston Star. In his capacity at the Star and before that at papers in Washington, D.C., Raleigh, N.C., and elsewhere, he covered some of the great Civil Rights stories. He reported on social and political change in the South and discussed it with influential national and international figures, including presidents (Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy),prime ministers and secretaries of state and defense.

Ayers was an NPR "Morning Edition" commentator for more than a dozen years. Click here for a review of the book in the Washington Times.

Ayers,a graduate of the University of Alabama, studied journalism at Harvard and Columbia on fellowships.