Who is reporter G. Chambers Williams III and why can't he and The Tennessean give us definite numbers on corporate welfare for the VW plant?

Never late than sorry, The Tennessean and reporter C. Chambers William III made their first attempt at informing state taxpayers about how they are having to pay in corporate welfare for auto jobs at the VW plant in Chattanooga.

Chambers used the qualifiers of "some estimates" and "not known" about the size and value of the giveaways for VW. If he could not get access via local and state governments to report all these numbers, then that sure would have been a better column for Editor and Vice President Mark Silverman in today's Issues section. He and his newspaper are supposedly champions of open records. Here's an area, Mr. Silverman, that you should tackle in print.

But it would be hard for him to do that. He and a lot of the Tennessee news media leaders serve as cheerleaders for economic development -- or what passes for it in the political arena -- at the cost of taxpayers.

Mr. Chambers really isn't at fault in his reporting, except for the first FOUR paragraphs of his story that read like an editorial instead of an objective examination. Has The Tennessean heard of attribution? Perhaps not.

I attended a writing session Silverman led -- before he came to The Tennessean and I contracted leukemia -- in which he and then Tennessean Editor Frank Sutherland agreed that some long-time reporters do not require attribution.

Yes, they claimed that. The reporters at The Tennessean cited as worthy of not using attribution in news or sports stories were reporters Kirk Loggins and Jeff Legwold. Along with many other long-time pros at The Tennesseans, these two journalists have long been gone.

The biggest loss of the departures was investigative reporter Sheila Wissner, who had the saavy to report BEFOREHAND on all the goodies Dell Computer was promised from then Mayor Bredesen to come to Nashville.

She discovered that the promised corporate welfare over 40 years would cost taxpayers more than they would receive. The VW deal is over 30 years, so that span makes its economic payback for all the goodies given even more in doubt.

Yet The Tennessean editorially endorsed the Dell deal before it went to a vote of the Metro Council, and an MTSU professor intervened and produced WRONG numbers to dispute Wissner's fine reporting.

We all know what happened. The deal was approved. Bredesen and others crowed about how Nashville was going to become a high-tech corridor.

But it gets worse. Then billionaire Michael Dell decided after initial Nashville operations to move the high-paying manufacturing jobs out of Music City and over to Lebanon. He left lower-paying, box-filling jobs in Nashville. And the city was left paying big taxpayer gifts to Dell for every job he still had here, manufacturing or box-filling. The Purcell administration then tried to come in and clean up this mess.

Yet if Chambers reporting is credible, the state -- under Bredesen -- is now following previously failed policy in offering another significant and annual taxpayer gift for each job -- this time to VW.

How can Bredesen get away with this?

Are there safeguards in the VW deal to prevent that corporation from pulling a Michael Dell?

Will Tennessean reporters be required to use attribution in their stories, instead of making the same anecdotal claims as were used with Dell in Nashville?

Would The Tennessean consider making an big offer to Shelia Wissner to come back and do reporting on this matter of interest to taxpayers?

I hope The Tennessean would take the above comments constructively, because there is a way out of reporting that leaves more questions that it answers and column writing that is not pertinent to the moment.

Everyone of us, including me as a subscriber, needs a better Tennessean that is more comprehensive in its reporting. While veterans who have been bought out of their careers and/or who have left for new opportunities are hard to replace, there is progress that can be made with less experienced reporters.

Certainly, a more thorough use of Lexis-Nexus in adequately researching past economic development deals locally and statewide would provide fodder for more questions and better analysis -- particularly in the play story on the front page of the Sunday newspaper and still in the historial shadow of the Dell deal.

Overcoming all these obstacles, however, requires effective leadership from the top. Mr. Chambers tried to do a good job on his story. That point is quite evident. Perhaps an editor rewrote his first four paragraphs. It happens. I know. But Mr. Chambers also needs the direction of editors who have been here a long time and seen all the political tricks played by Bredesen and others.

Without that kind of leadership in the ranks and at the top, newspapers not only here but across the country expose themselves to extinction ... which not only would be bad for this nation but for all the many dedicated rank and file employees at The Tennessean and elsewhere.

They and their families deserve better. Taxpayers, too.