The story sounded too good to be true—and, sadly, it was.
Three days after the disastrous terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Center, the Nashville City Paper reported that a recent Vanderbilt graduate had miraculously been found alive “buried in the carnage on New York’s streets.” Actually, the graduate, Terence E. (Ted) Adderley Jr., had not been discovered, and he is still among the missing.
In a front-page story on Friday Sept. 14, The City Paper’s Judy Tackett reported that Adderley was one of the survivors of the New York air assaults, referencing a Web site that listed his condition as “OK.” Tackett, however, quoted no hospital officials and didn’t name any hospital where Adderley might have been treated. Tackett’s only other source was Jon Crisp, a mentor in Adderley’s Sigma Chi fraternity. The reporter quoted Crisp as saying that some of his friends called that day to tell him that Adderley had been found under 60 feet of rubble. He relayed the secondhand information that he had heard from a few unnamed fraternity brothers. It wasn’t the kind of authoritative source crucial for a story like this. Reached by the Scene, Crisp, who works as a general manager for the Hampton Inn and Suites in Green Hills, wouldn’t comment on his interview with City Paper.
In the rush to break a story, the start-up daily went with dubious information it didn’t bother to verify. In its next issue, the paper ran a front-page correction that in any other instance would have been just embarrassing. Here it was painful.
A spokesman for Kelly Services, where Adderley’s father is the CEO, offered the following comment: “Terence E. Adderley Jr. is still considered missing. The company has no further statement at this time.”
Worth a look
One of the few recent examples of meritorious local journalism was an alarming exposé from WSMV-Channel 4 investigative reporter Nancy Amons on the lax security at Nashville International Airport. Channel 4's ace revealed that over the last 10 years federal inspectors have found more than 212 security violations. In February 1999, a Federal Aviation Administration undercover officer slipped a weapon, a hand grenade, and a bomb past security checkpoints.
Perhaps the most alarming revelation of all was that officials of Argenbright, the private security firm that is supposed to ensure the airport's safety, plead guilty last year to allowing untrained employees to work at Philadelphia International Airport. In addition, dozens of its workers have been convicted of serious crimes. Finally, the state of Tennessee is also investigating the company for knowingly allowing a convicted criminal to work security at the Memphis airport.
You can check out Amon's report at www.wsmv.com.
Look within
The Sunday after the City Paper story, Tennessean editor Frank Sutherland indirectly referred to the City Paper’s serious error in a column about the many national and local media outlets that erred in their reportage of the terrorist attacks. In the same issue, Tennessean reader editor John Gibson wrote a self-congratulatory column with the back-patting headline, “Tennessean comes through under pressure,” a phrase that should be used to describe rescue workers, not journalists at 1100 Broadway.
In any case, both Sutherland and Gibson should have looked at the day’s issue before it went to press. In the Life section, the paper provided a timeline for its readers on some of the nation’s greatest tragedies, listing the date of the New York City/Washington, D.C., terrorist attacks as April 11.
Paper trail
Former WRLT “Radio Lightning” personality Peter Rodman recently received a voicemail from a Tennessean customer service representative asking whether his papers were being delivered. That surprised Rodman. He had not been receiving any papers and, in fact, has never subscribed to the morning daily.
Trying to avoid a bill for papers he didn’t order—and wasn’t receiving—Rodman called the daily and spoke to the rep’s supervisor. “I said to her, ‘How desperate do you have to be to sneak subscriptions past people?’ ” he recalls.
A few days later, Rodman received a bill from The Tennessean. He doesn’t plan to pay it.
“They have called me incessantly about subscribing, and I have said ‘No.’ Now they are trying to pretend I have a subscription.”
An official with the Tennessee Division of Consumer Affairs says that she has received only one similar complaint about this predatory practice—and that was years ago. So Rodman may have been the victim of one particularly overzealous customer service rep. If, however, this has happened to you, e-mail me about this or other media concerns at MPulle@nashvillescene.com.
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