Locker and Locker
Rick Locker, the Commercial Appeal‘s longtime Capitol Hill reporter, has left his post to take a job in communications with the Tennessee Board of Regents. As the Nashville Scene‘s Steven Hale put it, in a piece bemoaning the dwindling institutional memory in government reporting, there’s now a little, “less scrutiny for a legislative body that could always use more of it.”
Newspaper culture changed overnight in Tennessee when Gannett added both the Commercial Appeal and The Knoxville News Sentinel to a list of media properties that already included the Tennessean. The CA reporter had become a contributing presence in all of the state’s three major publications, and his voice will be missed.
Check out the Scene’s commentary for a brief, pithy overview of the situation.