Part IV: The Rise and Fall of The Tennessean

A reader recently wrote me during the first two parts of my series on The Tennessean and asked a question.

For me, that is the most important moment in journalism. First, a reader has taken the time to read what has been written and wants to know more. Second, the reader has taken his or her valuable time to write you. Finally, most newspapers don't give a damn about what readers want. So I have always taken great joy in responding to readers and being more relevant to their lives.

So a reader asked what were the ideas rejected by The Tennessean during its greatest circulation days from the height in 1994(292,000 on Sundays) to when I came down with leukemia in Dec. 2005.

Let's role the videotape:

* Why can't there be a full picture and headline above the fold so we can sell more newspapers in newsstands?: The operating continually asked that question -- and for this critical sales feature -- from the newsroom and the editorwhoshallgonameless. But they were repeatedly stonewalled with excuses. Design, more than content, was always big at Tennessean when I was there. And so the newsroom -- to impress itself and do well in corporate contests -- preferred full page designs. Pity the reader.

* Where are all your reporters? The operating committee consisting of the advertising, marketing, production and news departments noticed that -- outside of sports -- every other section features four of five people writing 80 percent of the stories. So what are the other 150 people doing in the newsroom?, committee members rightly asked. They never got an answer -- or a decent one. The editorwhoshallgonameless and the truth had never been on a first-name basis.

*Why are liberal political views on the editorial page creeping into news stories and their play?: The bias -- in the stories covered, headlines written, placement decided and stories not covered -- was damningly evident. And it turned off a number of readers.

* Why does the newsroom hate Christians?: That was an ironic question, considering that Nashville is known as the Vatican of the West and the Buckle on the Bible Belt. But on the front page, the biggest stories would be negative about the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. And more positive stories were about non-Christian faiths.

Most members of the operating committee were Catholic and were embarrassed by the negativity. The newsroom did create a single page inside the local section for coverage of faith. But religion writer Ray Waddle was more interested in writing about faith as an intellectual exercise and featuring the latest book, not the passionate and emotional spirit by which faith is lived here. It was evident that the editorwhoshallbenameless was not a church goer and did not understand the importance of faith in people's lives. He told my immediate boss that he was a Druid, and was most interested in stories about male-patterned baldness, sex and lowering your golf score. Wine, anyone?

The Closing of The Banner: Any time competition is reduced, be it in the NFL or newspapering, the fan and the consumer suffer. So it was when the Banner closed. Newsroom employment ballooned to 214 at The Tennessean. But quality and content did not. The feeling received by the operating committee seeking improvement from the newsroom was that "we won". No, economics won out, along with greed.


* The Liberal Clarence Thomas: Publisher Leslie Giallombardo and I discussed Dwight Lewis -- now editorial page editor and columnist -- several times. The issue was that Lewis did not represent what it was to be black in Nashville. He was of the elitists. His son did not go to public schools. His column was geared to blaming "Whitey". When I sat on the editorial board for a couple of months, then left, Lewis would come in late and offer little in the debate. He would just read a newspaper. He was the black window dressing for the newsroom -- in which he also served during my tenure as an editor deciding news coverage(Warning Will Robinson! Conflict of Interest, Conflict of Interest) and becoming the Clarence Thomas on the editorial board.

When Andrea Conte and the mayor's press secretary came in tell theeditorwhoshallgonameless that an investigative series was needed on Sam Levy Homes low income housing project to see what was wrong with the people there who had burned down a Dollar General Store, Lewis and I were ordered to go in. I did in the fall of 1997 with the incredibly talented photographer George Walker IV, my friend and one of the most compassionate people you'd ever want to meet.

Lewis, however, took a walk. I produced a mediocre four-part series that more importantly was not the prurient view offered of Cayce Homes by reporters Brad Schmitt and Susan Thomas years earlier. I still have friends there in the Hope VI area of what once was Sam Levy Homes, part of the most impoverished Census district in Nashville. Carlos Lowe -- who left his job as a Metro teacher to re-open the Magness-Potter Community Center in 1997 -- is an American hero and my good friend.

I write for people like Lowe and his wonderful Metro teacher wife and his mother and his two children, Enoch Fuzz, Father Joe Pat Breen, Sister Sandra Smithson, Hector Martinez, Debra Varallo, Fernando Garcia, Sharon Cobb, Father Ed Alberts, Charlene Grinder in Gallatin, soon-to-be House Majority Leader Glen Casada from Williamson County, the most honest man in politics I've ever covered former Rep. Frank Buck of Dowelltown, Brian Piepper, Kevin Sharp, Winston Evans, my Navy nephew Victor Chavez now serving in the war on terror, his parents and all the parents left behind while their loved ones serve.

Also people such as Congressman Steve Cohen, Gordon Bonnyman, Tony Garr, GOP County Chairwoman Linda Gilbert, state Sen. Diane Black, Joe Zaracone, the late Ashley Holmetz who now sees God, Vandy hematologist John Greer, Vandy internal medicine specialist John Gregg, the future first black mayor of Nashville DeCarlos Robinson, all the great students at Hunters Lane High School, Lori, Marcia, Mary and all the great nurses at Vandy oncology, my intellectual and handsome (and single) cousin Salvador Aguilar.

Most particularly, Gold Star families Mike and Molly Morel, Eva Savage, Marilane Messler, Ginger Ford, Patricia Shaw and Pam Creager, Donna Clemons and other organizers of Tennessee Marine Family, Charlie Ericksen of Hispanic Link News Service, Sgt. Zach Ross leading his Marine unit on his sixth tour od duty in the war on terror, Jeanne Reisel, Jay, Barbara and Emily Moore, the wife of the late great WWII aviator and high-Metro School volunteer extraordinaire Ben Blumberg, Deborah Diaz.

Also Vanderbilt Virtual School, Parents of Multiples of Middle Tennessee, colleagues Shelia Burke and Shelia Wissner, my buddies from India who lives in my apartment building, Williamson County Mayor Rogers Andersen, the Republicans in Wilson County, the Republicans in Warren County, the true-to-their-principles Democrats in Davidson County, Daily Oklahoman sports editor Mike Sherman and his son Brooks and daughter Lucille and my former boss Rick Jensen.

In addition, the homeless of Nashville I meet every day, my heroic brothers and sisters in north Nashville I meet every day, my brothers and sisters at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church on Nolensville Road, Metro Judge and cancer survivor Barbara Haynes, Quentin and Quincy Robinson and all the precious babies of all colors and sizes I've watched grow up the past 13 years and Mary at the self-checkout stand at the Cool Springs Publix.

Finally, the great families at Holy Family Catholic Church in Brentwood, the extremely generous families at St. Philip Catholic Church in Franklin, the good nuns at the Dominican Campus in Nashville, Stones River Marine Corps Reserve chapter in Murfreesboro, Williamson Herald publisher Derby Jones, USA Today publisher Craig Moon and so many others who keep me writing about the incredible and difference one person can make.

Most of all, for my mother, best friend and hero, Vita Hernandez Chavez, who got me into political writing, taught me how to love and care for many people, showed me how to cook and how to accept all hurts in silence and told me to treat a woman with dignity, respect and admiration. My heart remains broken over her decision to go to heaven at 1 a.m. on June 7, 2008. There will never be another like her. And perhaps there shouldn't be. Please cherish the people you love now. Tell them you love them constantly. Don't say and do nice things after they are gone.

Now back to the original post. Like the editorwhoshallbenameless, Lewis was also a worshipper of Seigenthaler. (He even backtracked on a published column criticizing the community composition a mayor's murder-rate review board headed by Seig. A week later, he wrote a column saying how wrong he had been after Seigenthaler told him so).

But like his comrade, Lewis was only a shadow of that great man who still had his flaws, minor as they were. When Lewis was turned in by the wife of a member of the operating committee for plagiarizing copy in his column, he was only suspended for one week without pay, and without him providing any real sense of repentance in his sort of apology to readers. And the Nashville Scene -- which never missed an opportunity to crap on The Tennessean -- did not write one word in criticism of his wrong. Was that simple, liberal political correctness, or was Lewis more to the Scene and its inside knowledge of The Tennessean than anyone realized? Inquiring minds still want to know.

By the way, the watchdog spouse was a research librarian who had provided the plagiarized copy to Lewis -- too lazy to go on Lexis-Nexus and find the information himself. Now you know why there is no legacy of black journalism at The Tennessean and why the editorial page has a very dim future.

* Quit crying that you're defending the First Amendment: Every time other departments started demanding that the newsroom operate according to their elevated standards, theeditorwhoshallbenameless always stepped behind the cover of the separation of journalistic Church and State and donned the cloak of "defender of free speech". Actually, that excuse was used to excuse incompetence and laziness. The newsroom had no more commitment to the First Amendment than Larry Craig to keeping his feet in his own bathroom stall. It was a defense of its bureaucracy first, and it was a very closed bureaucracy at that, more than in any government body I've ever covered in Oklahoma, New York, Tennessee and in Washington, D.C.

Sex, Lies and Videotape: The citizens of Soddom and Gamorrah could have learned something from the debauchery and drunkenness inside The Tennessean newsroom and with its leadership, with a few exceptions. Although The Tennessean had been a big supporter of feminism and choice, the way to get ahead was more tied to libido than intellect and skill. You almost felt like taking a shower after leaving for the day, except that there would be a danger that some editor might jump in with you. Don't drop the soap!


Dave Green: The operating committee wondered what had happened to managing editor Green, who came from a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper in Lexington that uncovered abuses in the University of Kentucky basketball program. Why wasn't Green doing more to make The Tennessean a a better newspaper? The answer was that theeditorwhoshallgonameless would frequently clip Green's wings when he tried to lift performance and accountability in the newsroom. It would take only a middle manager to go into the office of the top guy in the newsroom and say that Dave was being mean. Then Dave would be overloaded with bureaucratic paperwork so he would have to stay out of news meetings and in the editing of copy and direction of projects.

Publisher on the Editorial Board: That was something I had always pushed for, first with Craig Moon and then Leslie Giallombardo. At a smaller Gannett newspaper in upstate New York, that was our setup when I was editorial page editor. And our publisher had more direct contact with readers than anyone in the newsroom. For The Tennessean, it could have brought a more balanced editorial board instead of in full tilt to the left. You need a business person who is running a company or enterprise to realize the full impact of taxation. Remember, Tennessee's three stars on its flag represent a political balance in this state of liberal, moderate and conservative views.

That reflection in the mirror is not of your readers: In The Tennessean's defense, that really is the problem of nearly all the news media except for MSNBC and FOXNEWS. But The Tennessean in general performed so poorly even according to its own low standards. The newspaper really wasn't liberal and progressive either, because it kissed Phil Bredesen's ass and project every time. Still, an increasing number of Tennesseans are conservative and church-goers, two blind spots for the newspaper.

And so it goes. Thank you, Linda Ellerbee, wherever you are.