Knoxville Media AWOL on Pridefest

If you're looking for coverage of Knoxville Pridefest in the Knoxville media market today, you're looking in vain. I didn't find anything at the Knoxville News Sentinel except an article from yesterday focused on HIV testing. Nothing at WATE or WBIR showed up in searches. Perhaps the Metro Pulse will weigh in later this week.

But it's beyond me how a few thousand people can put on a festival celebrating gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in East Tennessee and it not be news. If our community is not even allowed to exist in the news, then we certainly won't achieve advances for equality in Tennessee.

If nothing else, coverage of Knoxville Pridefest would have provided quite a counterpoint to Rep. Stacey Campfield's (R-Knoxville) efforts to pass the Don't Say Gay bill this year as well as his complaints about OUTeach, UT-Knoxville's LGBT & Ally Resource Center. The Don't Say Gay bill was certainly on the minds of Nashville Pride festival goers as noted by the Tennessean. I can't imagine that East Tennesseans would have been hesitant to share their views IF THEY HAD BEEN ASKED.

-Chris Sanders

Attention, old media: This is the kind of political coverage I want

OK, so I've been ranting on Twitter at the four large dailies in Tennessee--the Tennessean, the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the Knoxville News Sentinel, and the Memphis Commercial Appeal because I didn't find anything in their online editions about the absence of Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker during the hate crimes cloture vote last night.

So what kind of coverage do I want to see on policy issues affecting the GLBT community?

1. Stories on the major bills--federal, state, and local. Where's the coverage of ENDA or Matthew Shepard? Where was the coverage this spring on the state hate crimes bill?
2. The positions of our elected officials on these bills. There has been no story in the Tennessee press about the fact that Congressman Jim Cooper is a cosponsor of ENDA. And shouldn't it give a reporter pause if both our state's U.S. Senators are absent from a key vote on a bill? There were about 20 cosponsors of the state hate crimes bill, but no story.
3. Give a sense of the case for both/all sides. What are the key arguments being brought forward to advance and defeat legislation?
4. Give us a legislative path/calendar. Let us know when the votes are going to take place.
5. Stop saying GLBT issues are controversial when the controversy hasn't yet developed. The Tennessean did this with respect to the Metro ordinance when no real opposition had materialized.

Is that too much to ask? Help the public debate this stuff. Damn!

English Only in the New York Times

Well, here it is. At least readers around the world will see that much of our city's leadership is opposed to English Only.

Tracking the Prop 8 rally coverage in Tennessee

This post will be updated as we find links to coverage of the Prop 8 rallies in Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis.

News sites:

Knoxville News Sentinel piece quoting Todd Cramer of the TEP Knox County Committee

Commercial Appeal piece covering the Memphis rally

WATE in Knoxville

NewsChannel5 in Nashville

Out & About Newspaper in Nashville

365gay.com piece that was actually written by Cole Wakefield, not the person who posted it.

The Advocate's blurb on Nashville

Blog posts:

Kimmaayy covers the Nashville protest with video
Egalia on the Nashville protest with links to Andrew Sullivan on Nashville and Chris Crain on Memphis. Crain was editor of the Vanderbilt Hustler before his involvement with Southern Voice and the Washington Blade.
Jim Maynard covers Memphis.
Andy Towle with Nashville pics, including a pic of that hot TEP banner!
Daily Kos picked us up on Nashville in their long list of cities

Photo collections:

Keith Hinkle
Out & About Newspaper
TEP

Early voting turnout low around the state

That's what they're saying in Hamilton County. Just over 8000 took advantage of the opportunity. Low turnout in Knox County also seemed to be on the minds of the editors of the Knoxville News Sentinel as they wrote in yesterday's editorial about the last chance to vote early. In Madison County (Jackson), just under 3000 people had voted early. As of Wednesday, fewer than 1500 had voted in Putnam County (Cookeville). Fewer than 2700 had voted in Rutherford County by the same date. There was a "spike" in early voting in Shelby County on Wednesday, but only 3.5 percent of the county's voters had turned out by the end of the day Wednesday.

When I voted in Davidson County on Thursday, there were more people holding signs for candidates than there were voters.

The reason typically cited is the lack of hotly contested county-wide races around the state. One certainly cannot blame the candidates. In Davidson County, the school board candidates have worked hard at getting their message out. And I think the same is true in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. With many incumbents not seeking reelection in the Legislature, there were more than the usual number of competitive Republican and Democratic primaries--Rutherford County being a prime example. The Democratic primary in the 9th congressional district has also been lively.

But I think the media is ignoring its own lack of coverage of the election as part of the problem. Part of citizenship is finding out for yourself what is at stake in an election. But that's also the responsibility of the media, particularly the leading the newspapers in the state.

More links on Memphis beating

WREG in Memphis ran this story with the reaction of the local GLBT community. Our own Jonathan Cole, who blogs here, is quoted.

"This is really what a hate crime looks like," says Jonathan Cole with the Tennessee Equality Project. "It clearly looks like from the video that people were looking the other way. That I think a symptom of the homophobia that exists within our community."

Cole says gay -- and especially transgender people -- face a dangerous indifference and that the video strongly indicates a hate crime.

Nashville's WSMV ran the video of the beating and an interview with the victim and her attorney.

The Commercial Appeal has this story that focuses on the firing of one of the officers involved. But they also note a new campaign that Amnesty International is launching to draw attention to the violence suffered by transgender people.

Amnesty International, which has been tracking police violence against lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered individuals is holding a news conference today in Chicago to discuss a campaign it is launching in that city to protest such violence.

The group reports widespread abuse by law enforcement ranging from derogatory language and excessive handling to rape and assault, said Ariel Herrera of Amnesty International.

"The most vulnerable are transgendered individuals of color," Herrera said. "They are the most stigmatized in the community and often targeted by police."

More questions about the Crafton amendment

Nashville saw a number of interesting developments on Councilman Eric Crafton's English only charter amendment today. The Tennessean discovered the story. The City Paper's Clint Brewer and Mike Byrd traded barbs about the coverage of the campaign. And the Nashville Post put up this rare no-subscription-necessary item about all the usage errors in the post card being sent out that urges people to sign the ballot petition.

But let's get back to the issue of the coverage. As Byrd points out, P.J. Tobia seems to be assembling the largest array of voices opposing the measure. Despite the fact that I believe the editorializing of the Scene, the City Paper, the Post, and the Tennessean do not and will not take Crafton's side, he is still driving the coverage of the story. His simple message that everyone needs to learn English gets repeated day after day. Even when Crafton's opponents say that immigrants know this and are already are learning English, that just amounts to an argument that the amendment is unnecessary. In some ways, it has the effect of reinforcing Crafton's message by making some people wonder why anyone would oppose the amendment.

What the coverage in the mainstream media and in the blogosphere also indicates is that the organization of his campaign is way ahead of the opposition. Poorly worded and punctuated though it is, the post card is going out to thousands of people. The website is up, running, and collecting donations. Robocalls have already begun. (A hat tip to Mr. Kleinheider for posting the link to Southern Beale who received one of the calls.)

The next question that the media should be asking is what the opposition is going to do about it. So far, all I've seen are some well stated public arguments and hints of a law suit if (after?) it passes. The battle of ideas is important, but you can win the battle of ideas and lose the war. Will there be an organized campaign, a referendum committee? If so, who will lead it and become the organizing focus for the opposition?

Round up on the Crafton Charter amendment

Coming in fast are the responses to Councilman Eric Crafton's effort to amend the Metro Nashville charter with a ballot initiative that would make English the official language of Nashville.

Jim Grinstead of Progressive Nashville had this full-blooded retort to the effort.

It's a multi-cultural world and Crafton has yet to realize it. He would rather see families do without necessary services if they cannot ask for them in English. Do people learn faster when they are denied water and sanitary services? Should they ignore the accident victim on the side of the road because they cannot speak English during a 911 call?

Mike Byrd asks why the City Paper isn't asking more questions, particularly about the claim that Crafton's amendment would help immigrants. As we said at Grand Divisions earlier this week, it's the media coverage that will matter in shaping the debate.

Truman Bean takes another view, focusing on the perspective that Crafton is a champion of democracy in jumping over the Council on the issue. He touches on the media issue, too:

Just wait, the Tennessean and their status quo cronies will opine heavily against it.

I wonder how long we'll have to wait. As of Saturday, the Tennessean still has not covered the story. WSMV has. And even though WSMV included a response to Crafton's initiative, it's clear that Crafton is setting the agenda for the coverage so far.

The Nashville Scene's Pith in the Wind quoted Mike Byrd and added their own touch by posting a picture of Godzilla. Let's hope they assign one of their writers an extended piece on Crafton's campaign.