Regarding the Tennessean's "coverage" of the Nashville Rally.

[jmdrake]

Well I wish someone had contacted some of us from Nashville. The truth is that the Tennessean did NOT cover the rally in their Sunday paper! I HAVE a Sunday paper at my house! They did do a pre-rally story for Saturday's paper that was on the front page. (I'm in the picture holding a sign, although they got my name wrong. But this ain't about me.) But SUNDAY'S paper didn't have anything. Was this a slip up? Maybe. But notice the effect. The Sunday paper has a MUCH higher circulation than the Saturday paper. Also someone might have read the Saturday paper, see the information that the rally was coming up, not having seen anything in Sunday's paper thought "Oh, it must not have been that big"! So most of us living in Tennessee aren't too happy about this. But I thank those who contacted the Tennessean and reported back they're claims that this was just a slip up. Without proof otherwise I'll take their word on it. The video coverage on their website was nice too. But nothing comes close to the effect of a front page Sunday story of the really itself would have had. Instead there was same lame story about Fred Thompson (who's not even visited Nashville yet.)

Regards,

John M. Drake

[LibertyEagle]

Apparently, they did have the story online.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071006/NEWS0206/710060385

[davidhperry]

But nothing comes close to the effect of a front page Sunday story of the really itself would have had. Instead there was same lame story about Fred Thompson (who's not even visited Nashville yet.)

I certainly agree but I we can't force them to write something by dispatching angry emails to their staff. It is what it is. Hopefully they cover him more when he comes back.

[speciallyblend]

I certainly agree but I we can't force them to write something by dispatching angry emails to their staff. It is what it is. Hopefully they cover him more when he comes back.

I have yet to see anyone that wrote an attacking email,only pointing out the problems with the coverage,if you know someone that sent a angry attacking email then let me know k:) peace

[jmdrake]

Apparently, they did have the story online.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071006/NEWS0206/710060385

No. That is NOT coverage of the rally. It's PRE rally coverage. Here is a quote from that story.

Nashville-area Paul supporters are hoping this sudden bust of attention will fill the seats at the Paul rally in War Memorial Auditorium this afternoon.

In other words that's a story about how supporters HOPED the stands would be full. It says NOTHING about the fact that the auditorium WAS full and people had to be turned away. That's the story that was on the front page on Saturday that I was mentioning. And yes, there was a decent video clip of the rally itself that you could find on the Tennessean but I don't think that was on the homepage. It comes up as soon as you click the "videos" link. And I already mentioned that in my first post too.

I agree that angry emails aren't the answer. I don't think an email needs to be angry even if the rally hadn't been covered pre or post. Emails should always be measured and professional.

I would be pleasantly surprised if Ron Paul gets back to Nashville before the primary. It's a big country and he's got a lot of places to be. Here's my advice to people who are having future rallies. If/when you get contacted by local media ask if they're planning to fully cover the rally itself or just the pre rally preparations. You can't force them to do anything, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

In retrospect I can't be to shocked by the way the coverage came out. Tennessee is, after all, "Fred Thompson" country. And the Ron Paul coverage certainly could have been worse.

Regards,

John M. Drake

[LibertyEagle]

No. That is NOT coverage of the rally. It's PRE rally coverage. Here is a quote from that story.



You're right. It's still a good article though.

I understand that you're upset. What are you suggesting we do, if anything?

[davidhperry]

I have yet to see anyone that wrote an attacking email,only pointing out the problems with the coverage,if you know someone that sent a angry attacking email then let me know k peace

This is an email our group received from the Tennessean reporter who was at the conference:


...my poor editor has gotten more than 100 calls from enraged Ron Paul supporters around the country, claiming we didn't write anything about his visit to town. I think it's in response to someone posting something on a message board or e-mail list somewhere. If there's any way to let them know that we did run a front-page article, that would probably save my editor's head from exploding.

This is the editor of a large and influential newspaper and we effectively pissed him off in they way that we handled ourselves.

If we're in the top tier, we should start acting like it.

[foofighter20x]

What time did the rally end?

Most papers are put to bed (i.e. final edition sent to printing press) sometime The afternoon of the day before.

If the rally ended after the paper went to bed, it's likely it wouldn't be in the next day's paper. It think it's sad they didn't at least mention it, but did they give it a full write-up in the Monday edition?

[jmdrake]

For the record I haven't sent any emails to the Tennessean and I'm not asking anyone else to do so. I'm just trying to set the record straight about what actually happened. Yes there was some coverage (pre rally front page coverage and web video of the rally) no it wasn't adequate and yes the Tennessean is clearly biased toward Fred Thompson which is to be expected.

If anything the best response at this point is for those who attended the rally to simply write positive letters to the editor about the rally itself in the hope that they get published. I do think it was important to ask why the rally didn't covered and I'll take the response from the Tennessean that "the weekend editor screwed it up" at face value even if I have my personal doubts. Also ultimately while we do want to have good relations with newspaper editors, they should also realize that we are the customers. (I'm a weekend subscriber.) So we all have cards to play.

Oh, and the rally was in the afternoon and ended in plenty of time to make the Sunday edition. The pre-rally sign waving on Friday ended later but they had a write up of that for Saturday. But this could have been a slip up.

Regards,

John M. Drake

[wgadget]

Rally was over at 3pm Central Time.

[steph3n]

hrm so if they didn't run the followup article in the paper, is there not some need of mails coming in?


However I agree anything that gets posted for action here has a mass effect and I'd not be surprised if there were 300+ emails which is way overboard, 10-20 would have gotten the point home without seeming like attack dogs.

[foofighter20x]

Rally was over at 3pm Central Time.

Ok, so I doubt that the reporter is going to throw together a story from all his/her notes and interviews in less than a few hours before the editors go home for the night and put the paper to bed.

I seriously think it didn't make the Sunday edition solely due to time constraints and nothing else.

[deedles]

I disagree that hundreds of emails are a problem. Let these *news* people see the sheer number of citizens that are now paying attention. Knowing that people are reading for content should help to keep them honest in the future.

However, every single email sent should be courteous and polite. It should be as if Dr. Paul wrote it.

remember: WWRPD?

Let none of us do anything to cast a bad light upon him.

[jmdrake]

Ok, so I doubt that the reporter is going to throw together a story from all his/her notes and interviews in less than a few hours before the editors go home for the night and put the paper to bed.

I seriously think it didn't make the Sunday edition solely due to time constraints and nothing else.

And yet the Friday sign waiving was over at 6:15 pm yet there was a story ready for Saturday. No. I don't buy the argument that they "didn't have time" to get the story together. Nor has the Tennessean made such a claim. That would make them look VERY unprofessional. Think about all of the news that breaks every day after 3:00 pm that makes it into the next day's paper. I will buy the excuse from the Tennessean that the weekend editor "fumbled the ball" because I have no proof otherwise. And I don't think angry emails are helpful regardless.

Regards,

John M. Drake

[Matt Collins]

This is the e-mail I recieved from Mark Silverman the editor of the Tennessean:

"We ran a substantive advance on the rally before it happened, a story that outlined Paul's campaign and the reasons for its support. We also produced live video coverage of the rally on Tennessean.com Saturday, and the video story remained on the site all day Sunday. Because of a communications error internally, there was no print story on the rally Sunday. But we hardly ignored the visit." msilverman@tennessean.com