Desperately Seeking the News
What is now known as All the Rage started in 2000 as The Tennessean’s attempt to develop new and young readers who would eventually take the place of the daily’s aging—and dying—demographic. It took the form of a skinny entertainment guide called simply The Rage. (It would have been dubbed The Skinny had there not already been a trademark for such a moniker.) Four years later, coinciding with Gannett’s decision to fold classified advertising into the young adult publication, it morphed into a tab and, with that, came a new—but not improved—brand: All the Rage.
Now Tennessean insiders say they are once again considering an identity change for this weekly source of drunk blonde photographs, sing-songy fashion advice, dumbed down news talking points and, to be fair, occasionally decent music coverage and comprehensive entertainment listings that compete directly with this newspaper’s.
“We’re going to take at look at it in terms of the way you look at any publication,” says one Tennessean source in a position to know. “We’re talking about it. Maybe it’ll happen, maybe not.”
Asked why a publication that has built a brand over seven years would want suddenly to abandon it, this source says, “I don’t know, pep the thing up,” before adding, “What would you think if I turned that question around on you?”
Desperately: “You mean, why would you want to rebrand a vapid, substanceless piece of.... Ohhh.”
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To which the source volleys back, “I didn’t say any of that. I also didn’t say you were wrong.”
An experiment ends
Trent Seibert, the fast-talking, quick-witted reporter who left a Tennessean gig covering Capitol Hill six months ago for an investigative reporter position at WKRN-Channel 2, quietly left the TV station last week after offering a letter of resignation to news director Steve Sabato.
The move to broadcast in the first place—after just a year-and-a-half at the daily—was an unorthodox choice for both Seibert and the Channel 2 brass, but it was consistent with station general manager Mike Sechrist’s overall vision for upending traditional TV formulas and formats and flying by the seat of new media pants. Sechrist, who is responsible for instituting Channel 2’s videojournalism approach and its snug—zealous even—embrace of blogging, recruited both Seibert and Tennessean gossip columnist Brad Schmitt in quick succession last year.
Seibert, an old-school source-building, cocktail-swilling print type, says he simply didn’t adjust well to the switch from newspapers to TV and that the never-ending deadline pressure literally made him sick.
“TV wasn’t for me. I was getting physically ill every day before work,” he tells the Scene, adding that the decision to leave was made easier the day he vomited blood.
“I believe in what Mike Sechrist and his team are doing,” Seibert says. “I think they are the only visionaries on the block as far as TV news goes. The industry just doesn’t know what to do. Critics ought not use this as an example of Channel 2 doing it wrong. I think they’re doing it right.” He then adds, channeling George Costanza, “This is the classic case of ‘It’s not you; it’s me.’ I’m kind of embarrassed by it. I wish I could have toughed it out.”
Sechrist is equally gracious, saying the staff thinks highly of Seibert and that casualties “are gonna happen” with experimentation. “My reaction is one of sorrow that it didn’t work,” he says. “He worked hard, took it very seriously, applied himself…. I was hoping it would end with multiple Emmys. He was supposed to be a big part of our February sweeps. He’s very talented, and we wish him well.”
Seibert says he’s pursuing the possibility of a book deal and an opportunity in academia. Meanwhile, he says unequivocally that he has no plans to return to The Tennessean. “I want to take a break from daily journalism.”
Odds and ends
With Tuesday’s Tennessean came sweet relief, the merciful end to seven days in a row of Peyton Manning on the front page. Never has a bruised thumb provoked such prolific and breathless copy. The weeklong homage to the thick-necked UT alum finally culminated in Monday’s headline “DOUBTS ERASED” alongside a picture of Manning holding up a Super Bowl trophy. It was enough to make fans root for the Bears.
“We think—native son, liked by a lot of people, disliked by a lot of people,” Tennessean editor Mark Silverman explains. “And therefore he would define the concept of ‘love him or hate him but spell the name right.’ We think he attracted a lot of eyeballs to the newspaper and that a lot of serious news stories got read that otherwise may not have been seen.”… Tennessean business writer Jeanne Naujeck, who left the paper a year-and-a-half ago with a herd of other ship jumpers, was recently recruited back. But she resigned after a week, newsroom sources say, upon realizing that the promised cultural changes in the post-E.J. Mitchell era weren’t dramatic enough to quell her wanderlust.