With a “letter left on a desk, no conversation, no face-to-face meeting, no thanks,” WSMV fired its star TV anchor Demetria Kalodimos on Jan. 1, 2018. After 16 Emmys and more than three decades covering Nashville on prime-time nightly news broadcasts, she had become among the city’s most recognizable media figures. Her pivot to the Nashville Banner instantly brought a dedicated audience and a career’s worth of credibility to the new online outlet (inspired by the longtime Nashville daily of the same name). She now balances the podcast interview series Banner & Company with investigative hits and occasional beat reporting. Her decision also reflects a trend of nimble new outlets regularly outmaneuvering TV stations and legacy titles across platforms. With Kalodimos still leading the way, it’s great journalism that tends to rise to the top.
