Reporting For Duty

A Wordsmith West of Knoxville

Prior to my shift into marketing work, I was a journalism major and spent five years in the writing profession as a reporter and columnist for several news outlets. My primary expertise was Arts & Entertainment, but I covered a broad range of issues and industries whenever newsworthy events and topics arose.

Admittedly, I wrote from a left-leaning angle back in my Creative Loafing and This Week In Sarasota days. I was a young musician fresh out of college, hired by an alt-weekly newspaper the month Obama was elected, writing for the youth demographic readership of Florida’s “Arts and Culture Capital.”

So yeah, I was a big lib. These days, I describe my politics as “extreme far-middle, no-wing, dyed-in-the-wool purple moderate independent.” I’ll debate till I’m red and blue in the face the merits of a “best ideas from both sides” approach with an emphasis on hyper-localized independence, falling back on individual, municipal and states’ rights for every policy possible.

You won’t hear this viewpoint on national news. It took a lot of traveling to form it. And I’ve never found a reason why the citizens of San Fran and Knoxville should have to live by the same rules, other than wedge issues are useful for politicians and special interests, and a divided populace is easier to conquer.

Some want freedom for things that others want freedom from. And that’s okay. Communities should decide their own laws by whatever freedom means to them. The genius of America’s founders was the revolutionary concept of sovereign States United under a common flag. We should use their gift as intended.

The reason I mention any of this is two-fold. Firstly, to my fellow Tennesseans, I’m not some blue state transplant trying to import my liberal values. I’m primarily a Hoosier and Floridian that has strived to find common ground by engaging in good faith conversations with the residents of 40 different states throughout my travels. No matter what positions you hold, chances are I’ll agree with at least half of them.

Secondly, to news media outlets, I’m probably about as genuinely unbiased as a writer gets these days. I believe I could offer nuanced, balanced reporting and perspectives that readers are seldom exposed to, or put into a context they have rarely considered. My goal is to stimulate healthy public discourse.

This civil war raging from shots fired out of online echo chambers into an anonymous, algorithmic ether of bot accounts and paid instigators only serves to empower our global adversaries, degrade our national unity, and depress our spirits. We need more face-to-face chat rooms, with the intention of open-minded understanding, and that starts at the local level.

I’ve discussed my passion for supporting local, and that extends to my writing ambitions. I’ve grown to love this rural region west of Knoxville something fierce, and I hope to inform the broader community about all the hidden treasures and latest developments happening in these parts.

If you’re a news organization in need of a stringer to report from the front lines of Roane, Loudon, Anderson, Morgan, Cumberland or other counties beyond, I can be your boots on the ground. Shoot me a line and we’ll pitch some story ideas around.