In a newsroom saturated with racial consciousness—hiring quotas, staff-generated “news” that focuses on racial problems, and standing orders to sprinkle minority photos and quotes throughout the paper—Tennessean editors ducked and ran last week when the issue of race got too hot to handle.
“Sen. Jackson faces abuse indictments,” read Thursday’s page-one headline. Reporters Rob Johnson and Brad Schrade wrote that Doug Jackson, a wealthy and prominent state senator from Dickson, had been charged with child abuse and assault on his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. According to the story, Jackson was angry over his daughter’s relationship with 17-year-old Ron Edmondson, a fellow student at Dickson County High School.
Late one night in May, the reporters wrote, Jackson himself showed up at Edmondson’s house in Charlotte, Tenn., where he angrily confronted the boy’s mother, Beverly, and ordered Ron to stay away from his daughter.
The paper’s account didn’t explain why Jackson was so upset about the relationship. What didn’t make it into the paper tells the story. The Tennessean knew, but never reported, that the senator’s daughter is white and Ron Edmondson is black—half black, actually. His father is white.
Tennessean editors thought that race wasn’t relevant. “The circumstances were murky, and we just didn’t feel, on balance, that we should include it,” says Tennessean managing editor Dave Green.
The Edmondsons know better. Jackson “didn’t want his daughter talking to my son because he’s black,” Beverly Edmondson tells the Scene. “That was the main issue.”
Her son agrees. He says Elizabeth Jackson has told him more than once that “her father didn’t want her seeing a black person.”
The Edmondsons met Jackson for the first time that night in May when the senator came to their house, at 2 a.m., looking for his daughter. Although Jackson never said anything about the boy’s race, the mother says, “I can tell when people are prejudiced.” She says that Jackson didn’t have to put his thoughts into words.
The racial issue is no secret to the people in the small town of Charlotte or to the Nashville press corps. According to the state Department of Safety, a Tennessean reporter (and others in the media) have seen copies of an accident report involving the two teenagers. The report states that Ron Edmondson is black.
Last week Jackson issued a statement through his attorney that this was a “private family matter.” Neither Jackson nor his attorney responded to Scene requests for comment about the racial issue.
Just two weeks ago, The Tennessean and all other Gannett-owned papers were ordered to submit materials to Gannett corporate headquarters concerning the annual “All-American Contest.” This month, a team of editors will grade each Gannett paper in three categories:
♦ The number of minorities on the paper’s staff and in management roles “compared to the local minority population”;
♦ The “mainstreaming” of minorities (i.e., quotes and pictures) in “staff-generated content” (i.e., contrived feature stories);
♦ Coverage that “focuses on race and ethnicity.”
The Tennessean always seems to do well in the contest. Editors usually meet the hiring quotas, and grumbling reporters know that their job evaluations depend, in part, on how well they implement Gannett’s race-conscious policies.
The contest judges probably will be shown Tennessean stories about topics such as racial profiling by police, a black legislator burned in effigy in front of the Capitol, and Hispanic immigrants trying to get licenses. But the judges will never know about a far more compelling story involving politics, crime, money, and an interracial relationship that The Tennessean didn’t have the guts to print.
One doesn’t have to be Southern to recognize the explosive power of sex and race in a rural Southern community. To say that race, in this context, is irrelevant not only masks the tragedy of what occurred but robs the story of its moral lesson.
In the pre-Gannett era, Tennessean editors and writers were known, perhaps above all else, for writing honestly and often about the racial conflicts that divided, and still divide, this community. Those who now occupy their chairs at 1100 Broadway must feel very small indeed.
Ernie errs?
Ernie Freeman, the likable co-host of WSMV-Channel 4’s morning show, News 4 Today, was arrested Friday night on charges of assault and vandalism.
According to police records, Freeman was “grabbing” and “pushing” Lesa York, a woman he had been dating, at an Exxon station on Bell Road. He also allegedly kicked in her car door.
The arrest warrant states that the two had argued the day before and that York had fled to the gas station to avoid confronting Freeman at her house.
Channel 4 news director Mark Shafer says that he’s “concerned” about the incident but doesn’t know enough yet to comment further. He plans to meet with Freeman this week and says Freeman would “absolutely” remain on the air while Shafer looked into the matter.
