Award-winning news anchor Greg Meriwether sat down with author Jeremy White about his upcoming book, and produced a TV news segment so compelling, it evoked a laugh-inducing, off-the-cuff remark by his co-anchor. “I’m intrigued,” WAFB’s Elizabeth Vowell flatly declared on live TV at the conclusion of the moving interview, drawing a guffaw from her news partner. Meriwether’s in-depth feature on The Little Girl at the Bottom of the Picture: A Journey of Selfless Discovery aired as part of his “Street Beat” series on Wednesday, June 7, during 9News at 6. The nearly five-minute video represents White’s first interview since penning the immersive account of his wife, Edie, discovering her biological family in 2018 and the beautifully insane adventure that ensued.
Viewers see the two college sweethearts walking around the LSU lakes as Meriwether introduces Jeremy. “He’s made a living making fun of things, putting the ‘sin’ in ‘cynic,'” Meriwether jokes. “He wasn’t always a big believer in miracles. He says, though, it’s a miracle of sorts where his life is now.” Accompanied by footage of the author typing on his laptop, Meriwether describes Jeremy as a former “part-time comic, part-time high school referee, full-time cynic” who “traded in all of that for the wonder of discovery, to write a book to try and answer a very simple—and yet terribly complicated—question: Who is the little girl at the bottom of this picture?”
Fighting back tears, White explains how, for that family, the photo “had to suffice as the lasting image” of his titular character, “that little girl at the bottom of the picture, because she went away. She was taken away.”
Describing the black-and-white photo on his debut book’s front cover, White tells viewers, “That picture there is from Mother’s Day 1952. That is a porch in East Chicago, Indiana, and that is a very large, enthusiastic Ukrainian American family.” Fighting back tears, White explains how, for that family, the photo “had to suffice as the lasting image” of his titular character, “that little girl at the bottom of the picture, because she went away. She was taken away.” He continues, “For 65 years, they’ve been living with this. ‘What happened?’ You’ve got all those other children sitting on the steps behind her. These are women in their eighties,” he notes, who “had never seen their little cousin since that picture was taken.”
The segment closes with a dramatic pause on an image of the book, after White addresses Edie’s initial reluctance to having her life being published for public consumption. “Eventually, she’s realized this is really something that could really impact, in a positive way, a lot of people.”
Greg Meriwether is an EMMY and Edward R. Murrow award-winning anchor and reporter who has been at WAFB for nearly two decades. Meriwether anchors the CBS affiliate’s 5, 6, and 10 p.m. newscasts and is WAFB’s managing editor. The Kentucky native came to WAFB after studying journalism and history at Western Kentucky University.
Jeremy White is a tenured cynic who penned this hopeful book. He founded South Louisiana’s premier satirical publication in 2004, eight years before relaunching the award-winning Red Shtick Magazine as its all-digital progeny, The Red Shtick. The passionate Cajun can often be heard on various popular radio shows as either a guest or a guest host. A longtime football official and Mardi Gras krewe captain, Jeremy earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at LSU, where he and Edie met. They’ve been happily married since 1992 and live in Baton Rouge with their cat, Waffles.
White Lines Press (an imprint of Red Stick Comedy, LLC) is publishing the 468-page hardcover edition of The Little Girl at the Bottom of the Picture on July 1, but readers can pre-order signed copies at LittleGirlBook.com, where 1 in 20 customers will win a signed “lagniappe” copy. Signed hardcover editions are also available through partnered indie bookstores across the country, including Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs and Red Stick Reads in Baton Rouge. For more information and resources, visit our media center. Inquiries should be sent to [email protected].