Politics & Media >>

• Best Political Content Aggregator
  Adam Kleinheider
  Actually, he's Nashville's only political content aggregator (at least as far as we know). But he does it so well, we just had to honor his aggregation. Every day, literally two or three people go to Kleinheider's Post Politics blog for all the latest news and gossip, complete with his own witty... More >>
• Best Opponent to Anti-Immigrant Zeal
  Elliot Ozment
  Elliot Ozment is perhaps the best friend a foreign national could have in this town, especially if said national runs afoul of immigration authorities. A former state legislator, Ozment now practices immigration law. He last surfaced representing Juana Villegas—the nine-months-pregnant... More >>
• Best Continued Comeback
  Ronnie Steine
  The hands-down winner is Steine, if only for making it through his first year back in office without total public humiliation. OK, our standards aren't the highest here, but we never thought he could do it. Therapy works wonders. Six years after he resigned as vice mayor and exited the public... More >>
• Best Thing to Happen to Gannett
  Dave Paulson
  He's a guitar-slinger for local rock wizards The Privates and one hell of a remix aficionado, but this fresh-faced local rock dude also cracks the word-whip for The Tennessean. And what a mighty whip it is: With his seemingly encyclopedic musical knowledge, he parses everything from rock to... More >>
• Best Offbeat Public-Affairs Radio Show
  Legally Speaking, WLAC-1510 AM
  The next time you're sitting around on a Saturday night, hungry for free legal advice and live bluegrass, check out Legally Speaking at 7 p.m. on 1510 WLAC. Hosted by Nashville attorneys Ed Fowlkes and Steve Lefkovitz, the show features a panel of some of Nashville's sharpest legal minds, a... More >>
• Best Returning Radio Show
  Nashville Jumps, WRVU-91.1 FM
  Friday mornings lost a lot of their pep last summer when Pete Wilson took a hiatus from his long-running 91 Rock radio show, two celebratory hours of postwar piano boogie and rollicking jump blues. As of last month, Wilson is back in his 8 a.m. drive-time slot on Vanderbilt's college... More >>
• Best Advertisement for Nashville
  The Great Showdown
  Nothing brought more good vibes to Music City and boosted our profile more positively in 2008 than a good old-fashioned showdown—the long-awaited duel between two evenly matched contenders, with a national audience hanging on every word. We refer, of course, to the Pillage in the Village,... More >>
• Best TV Newshound
  Phil Williams, WTVF-Channel 5
  It's worth repeating: If you're a local politician, corporate executive or police chief and you get a call from Phil Williams, you have a problem. That's because Williams, one of the nation's top investigative reporters, has made a career of ending careers. His hit list includes former Davidson... More >>
• Best TV Feature Reporter
  Terry Bulger, WSMV-Channel 4
  Terry Bulger has the unique gift of making the commonplace seem one-of-a-kind. His "Bulger's Backroads" feature on WSMV is a daily instructional on how the ordinary people and places around us have extraordinary qualities. Whether crafting a slice-of-history piece about the civil-rights struggle... More >>
• Best Local Alternative to Zagat's
  Where the Locals Eat
  Brentwood-based Magellan Press has dipped its entrepreneurial fork into the literary arena synonymous with Zagat's, rolling out a series of restaurant guides in the 50 largest U.S. cities. In Nashville, it's veteran journalist Pat Embry who has shown the stomach—but not the belly—for... More >>
• Best Weather Forecaster (1 Comment)
  Lisa Patton
  Miss one of Patton's evening prognostications, and you're likely to spend the next day regretting it as you shiver through a cold spell that she'd called the week before. A native of Mt. Juliet—she graduated from Mt. Juliet High in 1979—she's spent almost her entire career in... More >>
• Best Media Trend
  Local Food Blogs
  Food isn't just the universal icebreaker: As Middle Tennessee's burgeoning foodie blogosphere proves, it's also the gateway to almost any topic you'd care to discuss—politics, as on Nicole Sauce's The Tennessee Waltz (nicolesauce.com); globe-trotting, as on Lannae Long's Lannae's Food... More >>
• Best Place to Watch the Culture Wars
  East Nashville Listserv
  Contrary to popular opinion, East Nashville is not exclusively a bastion of liberal commie bohemians. As the East Nashville listserv demonstrates, there are just as many folks from the wrong, er, other end of the spectrum (or maybe they're just more vocal). Recent topics vary from community-wide... More >>
• Best Metro Council Member (1 Comment)
  Emily Evans
  A budget nerd, Evans asks smart, tough questions of the bureaucrats in meetings and uses her blog to explain the mysterious matters of government to her constituents. Her stinging critique of the proposed May Town Center at Bells Bend helped win the day for reasonable people before the Planning... More >>
• Best Public Squabble
  The Battle of Bells Bend
  Who could have foreseen the day in the history of the world when a pretty place is preserved and greedy developers learn the meaning of the word "no"? Our hero is the grizzled farmer George West, who stood with trembling lips before the Planning Commission and spoke the words that stopped the... More >>
• Best All-Purpose Blog
  Nashvillest
  In this world of snark-and-cover blog wars, the chirpily helpful, angst-free vibe of local blog Nashvillest is a refresher course in old-timey civic-mindedness. Readers are greeted with a hearty morning hello, a dose of citizen-friendly news and a whimsical daily photo. But it's the roundups of... More >>
• Best Next Mayor (2 Comments)
  David Briley
  It's a little early for this, since Karl Dean's still got three years left on his term, but we can dream, can't we? We don't know about you, but we're feeling a little buyer's remorse. Dean has turned out to be not exactly as progressive as billed. He's cozied up to developers and adopted the... More >>
• Best Person to Butt Heads with Karl Dean
  Jerry Maynard
  The at-large council member spoke out against school resegregation (otherwise known as the student reassignment plan) when Dean wouldn't. He spoke out against the city's criminalization of begging (otherwise known as the ordinance to prohibit "obnoxious street behavior") when Dean wouldn't.... More >>
• Best Transit Activist
  Freddie O'Connell
  By day, Thomas "Freddie" O'Connell—Nashville native, computer programmer and Brown/MBA alum—stirs up the airwaves as Mary Mancini's dry-witted co-host on WRVU's popular liberal call-in show Liberadio(!). The rest of the time—make that all the time—he advocates tirelessly... More >>
• Best Display of Political Hardball
  The Tennessee Democratic Party
  The Democrats take the pennant for tossing out Rosalind Kurita's 19-vote victory over Tim Barnes in their state Senate primary. Kurita earned the party's ire two years ago for voting for Ron Ramsey for Senate speaker and giving control of the upper chamber to the Republicans. In return, she was... More >>