Dreamstime
Not all states are created equal in these United States. Some are rich, some are poor. Some are mostly warm (Arizona) and some are mostly cool (Alaska). And some are just plain irregular. The 50 states that comprise our country vary widely in shape and size. Some are more or less square (Colorado and Arkansas), even though most are more or less rectangular (think South Dakota and Indiana).
Then there are those other states, like ours, that come in odd shapes and sizes. And perhaps none are odder than our home state of Tennessee. Four hundred and forty miles long and just 120 miles in width, Tennessee is shaped like one gigantic cigar, given that it stretches 440 miles from Memphis to Kingsport. Given its formidable length, the Volunteer State shares with Missouri the distinction of bordering the largest number of other American states (eight).
Just consider our state flag with its three stars, reflecting as that flag does, our three “grand divisions” (West, Middle, and East), neatly divided by the Tennessee River in two places. Those divisions, of course, are as cultural and political as they are geographical. Western Tennessee is pretty much as flat as a pancake, while the Smoky Mountains create a far different landscape in the east. While Tennessee seceded in 1861, eastern Tennessee remained staunchly pro-Union throughout the Civil War. Even today, Memphis has about as much in common with Kingsport as it did back then.
I’ve been thinking about Tennessee’s cultural diversity, if you want to call it that, ever since Gannett acquired The Commercial Appeal in 2015, giving the Virginia-based company ownership of all of the major daily newspapers in our state save the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Since then, we have watched the transformation of the CA into a decidedly different kind of newspaper than it was just two years ago. Yes, there have been layoffs galore, but I for one am at least as much struck by the fact that Gannett seems to be trying to build a grand Tennessee brand for its papers across the state. Today, every CA reporter’s print byline is tagged with “USA Today Network – Tennessee.” Coverage is considerably broader than it used to be. Throughout the print edition of The Commercial Appeal, readers see more and more stories about news and events in other parts of our state, and fewer and fewer about what’s happening in and around Memphis.
I’m not making any kind of judgment here; I am simply observing that Gannett seems intent on making all its media properties across the state an integral part of what seems to be an evolving All-Tennessee network. Indeed, given that so many parts of its daily operations (proofing, printing, etc.) have already been moved out of town, I would not be surprised to see The Commercial Appeal transformed in the future into something called The Tennessean (Memphis edition).
Of course, it’s none of my business to determine what Gannett will or won’t do with our 176-year-old daily – that’s the national newspaper chain’s job, not mine. But still, someone in Nashville needs to think twice or thrice about what they are attempting to do in terms of Memphis news coverage. They need to consider how strange this current attempt to provide a state-centered set of dailies in Tennessee actually is, and what may come from this major media transformation in a state that is just about as far from homogenous as any in our country.
Yes, some states, because of their shape and the central location of their capital city, lend themselves easily to state-wide newspapers. Little Rock’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is a perfect example of a centrally located daily that can cover the news for all Arkansans. Tennessee's geographic circumstances are entirely different. People in Memphis, for example, care little about what happens to the NHL’s Nashville Predators. All the while, folks in Nashville probably care next to nothing about what happens to our beloved Memphis Grizzlies.
There’s no criticism here, just a recognition of reality. Nashville is Nashville, Memphis is Memphis; period, the end. As two centuries of history should have told their powers-that-be, the Gannett Company would be much the wiser if they simply recognized that, as regards a statewide newspaper network, never the twain shall meet.
