Post Editing
NashvillePost.com and Business Tennessee co-founder to leave the company
by Liz Garrigan
David A. Fox, who in January 2000 co-founded the online news service NashvillePost.com and more recently rebranded a local monthly business magazine into the statewide Business Tennessee, is leaving the company at the end of this month to head an asset management office in Nashville.
Fox will establish the Southeastern office of Titan Advisors, which plans to introduce hedge funds to institutional investors and high-net-worth folks in the region. As a bonus, he gets to work with his brother, George, president of the 14-year-old New York-based outfit.
"Starting Nashville Post was the most gratifying thing professionally I've ever done," Fox says. "I feel like we've produced useful content that people have found valuable, and I'm sorry that I will no longer be a part of it. But, frankly, I have such an excellent chance to work with my brother that it's not really an opportunity I can afford to let go."
But Fox (whose wife Carrington is the Scene's special projects editor) says he's leaving the company's editorial offerings in good hands. Reporter Drew Ruble, who has penned more of the magazine's well-sourced cover stories than any other writer, is Fox's handpicked successor. Ruble, 35, has a sophisticated grasp of important public policy and business issues and has also written stories for the company's website—although, in his new role as editor, he'll back off the online content to concentrate on the magazine.
"We hate to lose David," Ruble says, "but hopefully I can offer some continuity."
Unfortunately, less certain is the fate of the online news service, which was the backbone of the media venture when Fox and then-partner Bill Carey founded the company.
Townes Duncan, whose Solidus Co. is majority owner of NashvillePost.com and Business Tennessee, says that reworking—and possibly even shelving—the web-based news service was being considered even before Fox announced he was departing.
"In David's absence, the [website] planning will go on," Duncan says. "It's not really at a point where I can talk about it yet, but, in all likelihood, we will suspend publication for a brief period at the end of the month while we continue planning." At that point, he says, "It will be sort of a go or no-go decision. I'm optimistic that it will be a go decision."
If the online news service is laid to rest, subscribers will receive a pro-rated refund.
Fox will leave the company with an ownership interest, though his partners could exercise their right to buy those shares if they choose. In the meantime, Nashville's journalism community is losing one of its finest members, a guy who, in addition to being expert in the area of hedge funds (which Desperately could not define if she had a gun to her head), has built the kind of sources and reputation most reporters can only dream of.
One question, Fox: will you still keep that damn reporter notebook in your back pocket all the time? Or will you finally get a PDA?
Loss at Channel 4
WSMV-Channel 4 staffers were shocked to learn that their general manager, Steve Ramsey, had died unexpectedly Monday after undergoing an emergency appendectomy. Apparently, a blood clot traveled to his lungs after his Sunday surgery, and he died quickly. He was just 52.
"He had really good ideas," says Channel 4 investigative reporter Nancy Amons. "I don't think I'd ever had a general manager edit my copy before him." Though, she notes laughing, "I'd have to take the 'holy shit's out."
Andrew Finlayson, WSMV news director, says Ramsey would routinely send him home if he was working too many late hours. "A lot of bosses won't do that," Finlayson says. "Steve had a very good perspective that what really mattered was the unseen."
Ramsey didn't look the part of a ratings-boosting executive, what with his cowboy boots and his predilection for casual dress ("I can count the number of times I saw him in a suit," Amons says), but, with his news background, he resuscitated the station's ratings.
That doesn't mean, though, that everyone always agreed with him. Ramsey, for example, was pretty much the lone newsroom dissenter earlier this year when it became apparent that reporter Darian Trotter paid a male prostitute for an interview. Finlayson, and anchors Dan Miller and Demetria Kalodimos, considered the action a reportorial lapse. Ramsey didn't.
"He wasn't a god," Finlayson says. "He had feet of clay, but what a good man."
A long, slow death
"The downtown starship," as The Tennessean has become known (not so affectionately) by staffers within its smaller, affiliated Midstate papers, laid off Williamson County Review Appeal editor Mindy Tate on Friday and announced that it would begin publishing the paper just once a week.
When The Tennessean acquired the paper last year, it was a six-day-a-week publication. It then changed to three days, then to two, now to one. Some kind of weaning. It will now publish on Wednesdays.
Tate was summoned to Tennessean managing editor Dave Green's office Friday, where she was matter-of-factly dismissed and told that there was simply no ad support to continue publishing the RA on Saturdays.
"I've had a great career here in Williamson County, and I'm just going to sit and take stock," Tate says. "I do think every challenge is an opportunity."
Meanwhile, as one journalist notes, "you can hear the death rattles of the RA just driving down Main Street."
Email tips, gripes and comments to lgarrigan@nashvillescene.com.
Meanwhile, as one journalist notes, "you can hear the death rattles of the RA just driving down Main Street."
Email tips, gripes and comments to lgarrigan@nashvillescene.com.
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