While these early historians of Southern dissent broke new ground, they also reproduced Confederate authorities' negative view of loyalists as shady characters driven by dubious motives.
The state has some of the most blighted urban areas in the country in its north-west, which contains large black populations and gets Chicago television—from Mr Obama's home turf.
But thick clouds and an overcast sky obscured the view at the Indian village of Taregna, "epicentre" of the eclipse, says our correspondent in the area.
Together, these pressures create incentives to present as gloomy a picture of Africa as possible in order to keep attention and money flowing, and to enlist journalists in disseminating that picture.