Nashville News Blog

How do you think reporting works? You hear something, you follow up on it. You do some stuff folks find sleezy or distasteful. Most of the time it doesn't come to anything and you don't write about it.

Other times, you discover something weird--like that the Tennessean is open-edit.

Steve, you know I love you, but what the hell kind of prudish world do you want to live in where someone saying you're a burlesque dancer is cause for defamation?

It's a job. A cool job. It's nothing to be ashamed of or keep secret.

And that dancer was at a public event which the media was also invited to and posed for photos taken by the Tennessean. If she didn't want the world to know about it, why is she participating in a public art form in front of the media?

And it does have bearing on all of our lives if any fool can call the Tennessean and get them to change the shape of their coverage of events to suit the biggest complainer.

At this point, I hope that dancer is Rose Cox, because how much would it suck to have a job you're proud of and find out some bully can yank your image off the internet because you look too much like her?

I don't think the issue is that she's been "outed" -- the issue is that AC rather persistently pursued a non-newsworthy "tip" (about what?) via facebook which (to me, even, much less a girl) would come off as extremely creepy. She blew him off with a lie, and now she's the centerpiece of ACK's blow-hard morality tale.

I can't figure out what the "tip" is -- and that's where I'm really confused. "Hey, check it out -- Chris Wage works for centresource, and also, check out this picture of this dude drinking a beer -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwage/463671944/ -- ANYONE LOOK FAMILIAR!? *duh duh duh*" How is this a tip? A tip about what?

Who cares?

The only lesson here that most people are going to take away is that when ACK comes asking questions, you should ignore him entirely, instead of telling a go-away white lie.

If it's not bad for his professional life, it's certainly bad for his personal one.

Didn't you blog anonymously "out of respect for your family" because your Dad was a minister? What were you so ashamed of?

Betsy, perhaps you can see the problem if I quote a comment from the thread over at PP:

The fact that a well-known member of the lobbying corps is a burlesque dancer by night — and lies about it — is relevant.

You seem to be defending this because you think being a burlesque dancer is no big deal, so what damage was done? (excuse my rough paraphrasal) -- the reality, as far as I can tell, is that the "tip" here is that a lobbyist might dare dance burlesque, which is apparently a morally reprehensible controversy, worth "investigating".

If I'm wrong, I'll gladly rescind, but no one else can give me an explanation of what the "story" here is..

But Chris, that's how it works. You chase down rumors to see if there's anything to them. A person can't wait to see if there's a story before he investigates to see if there's a story. If it had turned out that she was a burlesque dancer and that was the whole thing--lobbyist by day, burlesque dancer by night--then yes, I'd think that was incredibly stupid and I'd be dogging Kleinheider right along with everyone else.

But as hard as people try to pretend that's the whole story, it's not, because she got to revise the Tennessean's website and who knew an individual who wasn't associated with the paper could do that and not leave a trace?

Or maybe Kleinheider would have looked into it and discovered something else newsworthy. But how can he know if there's anything if he doesn't look?

That's how it works.

People seem to be upset because they got a look at how the sausage is made and they resent knowing it.

S., if you don't see the difference between the Tennessean and you as an individual posting pictures on twitpic, I think that's pretty telling and just backs up my point about newspapers losing their cultural authority. I was still willing to grant them some. You're not. That's cool, we're just a few seats away in the same row of public opinion.

Tom, if only we hadn't had the weirdo abortion-torture-porn dude earlier today, you could win for most unintentionally creepy comment of the day.

That last anonymous comment (10:12PM) is mine.

Chris: Since you quoted me from PP, then at least put the whole thing in context. Which is ... sex. In the Legislature. Which has a problem with ... sex.

To wit: We’re talking about the Tennessee Legislature — an undisputedly sleazy culture where lawmakers (both Democrats and Republicans) swap everything from information to spit. The fact that a well-known member of the lobbying corps is a burlesque dancer by night — and lies about it — is relevant. If she worked at Kroger or Mapco, would it matter? Of course not. But she works in the most ethically and sexually challenged environment in the state. And she is part of the public trust (or in Tennessee’s case, distrust) that formulates policies and laws that affect all our lives.

That's relevant. Period. End of story.

The real failure in this whole situation is The Tennessean. They got scooped by a blogger who used their own photos to beat them to a news break. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny ... "What a maroon(s)!"

All I can say is that this whole thing sure is making for some strange bedfellows.

How one feels about ACK's story doesn't seem to be determined by political, social, or economic lines. It's purely a gut reaction.

B, what you feel about the respectability of burlesque dancing is quite beside the point. Chances are, Cox's employers don't agree with you. You may think that's crappy, but we deal with reality.

So, we're dealt with, er, exposing this person over, what, lying? To the media?

This is where you tell me that some yahoo on the internet has no right to tell you anything about journalistic ethics. But, if I'm in that chair, I don't make the same call.

She lied (maybe), and now you know that about her and can mentally file that away. But it, in an of itself, is not worthy of a possibly damaging story.

Like the policeman in the Gates case, professional ethics says you have to sit there and take it, unless something else is there to really take action about.

Slarti, who cares that she lied? People lie to journalists all the time.

What I care about is that she implicitly got the Tennessean to back her up in her lie, by getting them to take the photos down. If they were her, that's sketchy.

If they weren't her, she's got no right to do that to someone else.

It's weird, at the least.

And, yeah, the bedfellows are strange, but that's because the reaction has been so strange. When you, Slarti, say "Hmm, well, I wouldn't have done that," that to me seems reasonable and a place where we can have discussion and maybe not agree but reach some understanding.

Like the discussion we're having here.

But the weird outrage over at Post Politics? I'm just not understanding that. Do people not understand what reporting looks like?

You folks apparently have a lot of free time on your hands and nothing remotely fun to do with it. Either that or you're huddled in some cube somewhere avoiding what your employer is paying you to do.
This whole thing is the biggest ado about NOTHING that I've seen in a long time. And that goes for ACK's original story too. Who cares if it was or wasn't Ms. Cox other than Ms. Cox? This was not a party for politicos. The girl in the pix is is not a "burlesque dancer;" she was playing one at a party for somebody not related to Ms. Cox's day job.
Sheesh people.

I wonder if ACK would have been so hot for this story if Rose Cox were not a lobbyist. If she were just an ordinary shlub who worked at Acme Widgets I doubt he'd have taken the time.

And that makes me wonder if our politics-as-entertainment fascination hasn't reached a new level. You know, Pres. Kennedy had all sorts of fun with the ladies, including famous ones like Marilyn Monroe, and the media knew about it but never wrote about it because the president was considered "hands off." Fast forward a couple of decades and we have Pres. Clinton impeached for a blow job with an intern.

So now what a lobbyist may or may not do when she's not on the job is fair game? Do people really care? Is that newsworthy? Even gossip-worthy?

I'm just curious about the larger issue at play. This strikes me as VERY inside the beltway and I wouldn't think people would be interested, but then I blog about my cats and my garden so I suppose everything is fair game.

I was going to express my surprise that Aunt B. is taking this line, but instead I'll just quote what Harrison said in another thread:

"Just because I don’t want burlesque dancers shaping public policy and state law doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate a tasseled boobie when I see one."

Argumentum ad absurdum.

This particular blog is pretty revealing for someone who has also been having issues with this circumstance. I have looked at many resources to no avail. I will continue readingg and learning here in the hope of ultimately getting past this impediment.