Top Tennessee topics

Good morning and TGIF, Lookout readers:

The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, along with its research partner Smith Geiger Group, recently released a study on the growing refusal of elected officials to engage with the news media, finding that nine out of 10 reporters say they’ve been shut out by sources.

This isn’t news to us and if you’ve been paying attention to Tennessee politics, it’s likely not to you.

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, has been on the hot seat of late for her refusal to participate in forums or debates with the other two Republicans in the race and for an awkward encounter with reporter Ben Hall of NewsChannel5 in Nashville.

But Blackburn is far from alone and the issue crosses the political aisle. Time was, candidates for office sent their daily appearance schedules to reporters to try to ensure coverage. Few (if any) do that now: social media has made the narrative easier for the candidate to control. That’s a loss for voters, who only see a scripted version of the candidate he or she wants you to see and means Tennesseans may not get to see how prospective public officials handle themselves when posed tough questions by impartial reporters.

This makes the job of reporters covering elections a bit harder, but certainly not impossible, and even creates opportunities to do more in-depth research into candidates’ positions, backgrounds and finances, without the reliance on interviews that were once commonplace.

Moving on, today’s top stories focus on two issues that, like electoral politics, are always in the news these day: immigration issues and data centers.

by Adam Friedman

Tennessee is at the forefront of data center proliferation and is set to continue receiving significant investments in new projects which could lead to higher energy costs, according to a report released by ThinkTennessee.