Meek School Magazine: James Autry

James Autry. Photo courtesy of Meek School Magazine

By Sarah Bracy Penn. This story was originally published in the 2014-15 issue of Meek School Magazine. 

When he rolled into Oxford, Mississippi, on a motorcycle, he had only $50 and a band scholarship to his name.  Now, he’s a former Fortune 500 executive, the author of 12 books and has been dubbed one of the most successful and respected publishing executives in the nation for his work at the Meredith Corp. 
Because of his leadership at Meredith and in the magazine industry, he encouraged and supported the development of the magazine program at Ole Miss.
In 1951 James A. Autry, a freshman journalism major, was an area correspondent for The Commercial-Appeal. He buzzed around Oxford, stringing stories for the Memphis paper and the AP wire while advancing in the ranks of the Pride of the South marching band.
“Someone asked me, ‘Why’d you move from clarinet player to drum major?’ And I said, ‘As a drum major, I got paid,’” he said.
For Autry, Ole Miss wasn’t too far from family and the university had awarded him the largest band scholarship of all of the schools to which he applied.
As it turns out, Autry had more than that area correspondent gig and a flair for the clarinet — he had ambition.
Autry’s fellow students saw it in him before he even saw it in himself. His determination impressed Daily Mississippian editors Paul Pittman and Liz Shiver greatly.
“Jim was lively and extremely dependable in getting work done,” Shiver said. “He had all the characteristics you’d look for, but that the majority students don’t offer.”
Shiver, who was the first female editor of the paper, remembers having to beg Autry to join the staff.
“He was such a quick study,” Shiver said. “He was fast on his feet, clever and funny to be around.” He initially turned down the news editor position Shiver offered him. Still, Autry did not realize his talents. “In hindsight, he later saw my seeing all that promise in him as the reason he took the job,” Shiver said.
From 1951 to 1955, when he served on the paper’s staff, most of the students saw what was ahead if Mississippi’s division in race was not solved. Many Mississippian staffers supported integration and were challenged by Pittman to join the National Student Association, an organization that sought to organize college students to give them a voice. Despite the stakes, Autry joined.
He also covered a conflict between the Mississippi Trustees of the Institutions of Higher Learning and the university after the trustees rejected a program on campus because of the keynote speaker’s political views. When the story ran with his byline, a Mississippi legislator denounced him on the floor of the legislature.
After serving as managing editor under Shiver and being elected by the student body as editor-in-chief of the Mississippian in 1954, Autry graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism in 1955.
“My total ambition was to be a newspaper man and make $50 a week,” Autry said. But before he could pursue that dream, Autry entered the U.S. Air Force in 1955 and served as a tactical jet fighter pilot in Europe during the Cold War. When he was released from active duty in 1959, Autry began to pursue his career in publishing.
“I knew journalism was in my blood,” Autry said.
While it was an easy time to be a white journalist in the South, it proved a much tougher atmosphere for a Southerner in the Northeast and Midwest. Still, Autry pressed on. After a brief stint at the Courier Chronicle in Humboldt, Tennessee, he was offered the position that would become the gateway to his career.
He made an inquiry at the Meredith Corp. headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, the same day that a copy editor at Better Homes and Gardens had quit. Call it fate or happenstance, his decision to take the job opened a whole new world.
“I thought, by God, I’ve made it,” Autry said of his time at the magazine. Meanwhile, back in Oxford, Autry’s legacy lived on in the growing journalism department.
Ed Meek is a 1961 graduate of Ole Miss and the namesake of the Meek School of Journalism and New Media. Meek remembers when his professors would talk about Autry.
“Our professors always used him as examples of ‘who you could become’ in their lectures,” Meek said. “I just remember how extraordinarily impressed we all were.”
When Meek met him for the first time, Autry had been invited back to the university to share his story with current students. Meek was impressed by Autry’s achievements, but what really captivated the young journalist was Autry’s charisma and character.
“The ’60s were a time when John F. Kennedy was who everyone looked up to for inspiration,” said Meek, a former assistant vice chancellor for public relations and marketing at the university. “Jim Autry was my JFK.”
Today, Autry still serves as Meek’s motivation. More than 50 years after their introduction, the two still get together to share stories over eggs and sausage at The Beacon in Oxford. Meek said he owes a lot of his personal success to the advice Autry has shared over the years.
Autry has a constant desire to help others, and it proved instrumental in fostering his success at Meredith, Meek said.
“His motivational passion is what moved his career forward at Meredith,” Meek said. “With his leadership skills, he developed a vision for magazines.”
Meredith saw its greatest expansion under Autry’s leadership, during which he served as editor-in-chief of Better Homes and Gardens, and later as president of the Meredith Magazine Group and senior vice president of the corporation.
During his years leading Meredith’s magazine group, the corporation acquired four television news stations and Ladies’ Home Journal, launched Midwest Living and Wood magazines and saw Traditional Home evolve into a subscription magazine, among many other expansions.
In 1984, after several years of conversations about the need for a service journalism program at a journalism school, Autry encouraged Will Norton to ask the Meredith Corp. to fund a magazine program at Ole Miss.
Norton made a proposal to Bob Burnett, president and CEO of Meredith, and Autry enthusiastically endorsed the request. Meredith funded a five-year program that enabled the department to hire Dr. Samir Husni as its leader.
Once the program had momentum, Meredith made a generous donation of $150,000 to support its continuation, and under the leadership of Husni the program has gained worldwide acclaim.
“Jim Autry is one of those rare magazine executives who rose to the top from the editorial side of the business,” Husni said. “Like Henry Luce and DeWitt Wallace in the ‘20s of the last century, Autry ascended to the position of president of the publishing division at Meredith from the editorial side of industry. He was, is and continues to be a journalist first.
“No one before him or after him who assumed the job of president of the publishing division at the Meredith Corp. came from the editorial side. Jim Autry is one of a kind and I am proud to count him as my very first mentor from the magazine industry.”
Autry and his wife, former lieutenant governor of Iowa Sally Pederson, have become leaders in the promotion of autism awareness. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter appointed him to serve on the national advisory committee for the White House Conference on Families.
He was inducted to the University of Mississippi Alumni Hall of Fame in 1981, among countless other awards. For Autry, devotion and persistence are crucial to ensure ultimate success.
“Whatever you set yourself to do,” Autry said, “put all your values and all your focus to it and do it. Then move on to the next thing.”  

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