True Colors

The Dickson County judge who sealed court records concerning child abuse charges against state Sen. Doug Jackson may have had his own racist reasons for violating the First Amendment, judging from his comments in an earlier case.

No one could understand why, in December, Chancellor Alan Wallace ordered that all documents regarding the Jackson case be kept secret despite requests from both the defendant and the prosecutor that the details of the charges and resulting plea bargain agreement be made public.

Charged with assaulting his 16-year-old daughter, Jackson reportedly disapproved of the girl's relationship with a black, 17-year-old fellow student.

So too, it seems, did the judge.

Wallace was reprimanded in 1999 for pronouncing during a child custody hearing that he agreed with a witness' testimony that it would be "harmful for a child to be raised in an interracial household."

"She [the witness] comes from the same school I do," the judge said, according to court transcripts. "She can't help the way she feels. Society today feels differently than the way we were brought up."

On appeal, Justice Adolpho A. Birch Jr., the only black member of the Tennessee Supreme Court, wrote that Wallace's comments "could easily have been construed as reflecting the trial court's own prejudices" and created "the appearance of impropriety."

Whether Jackson's troubles with his daughter involve race (as the two teenagers believe) or not (as Jackson's friends say), there's no logical or legal reason for Wallace's secrecy order (which is being challenged in court). It appears, rather, that the judge probably thinks he's "protecting" Jackson's daughter by hiding her interracial friendship from the press.

And, so far, it's worked. Although other newspapers covering the case are aware of the racial issue, only the Scene has reported it.

Death watch

The nation's largest newspaper chain and corporate owner of The Tennessean has a terminal case of bad journalism, according to Robert Kaiser, associate editor of The Washington Post and co-author, with editor Leonard Downie Jr., of a new book, The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril.

Like most recent studies of newspapers, Kaiser's book depicts Gannett as among the worst of the large, publicly owned media chains that have turned once good papers into mediocre but highly profitable cash cows. The authors describe, for example, how Gannett bought the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey and, as one book reviewer wrote, "embarked on an orgy of cosutting, community boosterism, and pandering to advertisers."

Gannett executives are chapped, though not, it seems, because of what Kaiser and Downie wrote but about what Kaiser told a Boston newspaper last month.

After explaining that Gannett newspapers have lost the people, instincts and traditions that it takes to produce quality journalism, Kaiser predicted, "I genuinely believe that, if I live long enough, I will see the Gannett corporation fail."

Last week, Gannett newspaper executive Phil Currie responded. "Don't let the sniping get you down," he wrote to Gannett employees in an in-house newsletter.

Currie, who is both widely feared and disliked inside Gannett, was once described by another top Gannett editor as "someone who wouldn't make a good managing editor—no, correct that, a good assistant managing editor at even a Gannetwned paper."

But he can, apparently, be the chain's unofficial morale officer. In a long, company-boosting column, Currie acknowledged that there are plenty of Gannetashers, predicting that "the hunting season will continue on Gannett, the biggest newspaper company in the country." But the critics "who find it easy to snipe at the company" are "uninformed" and "lack a real understanding of how much our newspapers affect their communities."

Yes we do, Phil. We understand all too well. And we're glad that it's finally getting to you.

Cutting off the nose

In a shortsighted effort to trim payroll costs, The Tennessean apparently will be without an editorial cartoonist after this week.

Sandy Campbell, the paper's longtime cartoonist, has accepted an early retirement offer along with reporters Kirk Loggins, Jim East, Candy McCampbell and Warren Duzak. Sports writer Larry Woody, Capitol Hill reporter Duren Cheek and features writer Sylvia Slaughter were also offered buyouts but have decided to hang on.

The deadline for accepting or rejecting the offer was Friday.

Sources at the paper say there's been no discussion of replacing Campbell, whose retirement is effective April 1.

As for Loggins' longtime beat, the job of reporting on the district attorney's office and the state's appellate courts, as well as tracking all state criminal trials and civil lawsuits, probably will now be spread among the paper's police reporters. It's one of the most productive beats at the paper, but courthouse stories are not fashionable these days in focus-group-driven Gannetand.

The newspaper that has fought so hard and long to keep the state's courtrooms open to the public now apparently thinks the public has lost interest.

As for the editorial page, the paper probably will now use syndicated cartoons drawn by outsiders. That's too bad. In all its history, The Tennessean has won only two Pulitzer Prizes (both pre-Gannett): one for investigative reporting and the other, in l957, for an editorial cartoon.

To comment or complain about the media, call Henry Walker at 252-2363 or e-mail him at hwalker@nashvillescene.com.