If one didn’t know any better one might assume the same left-wing activists who protested CoreCivic last week are chummy with the writers and editors of The Tennessean, given how the paper covered the event.
So much so they collude with one another.
So much so the writers at The Tennessean might allow their personal biases to overrule the truth.
“They are protesting CoreCivic, and The Tennessean is giving them all the propaganda they can because CoreCivic does some of the detention facilities for illegal aliens,” said Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill.
Reporters at The Tennessean, Gill went on to say, are not telling the real story of what CoreCivic does.
Tennessean reporter Natalie Allison did not return repeated requests for comment Monday, and neither did her supervisor Duane Gang.
On the day of the protest, Allison signaled likely coordination with the protestors. Her first tweet covering the event occurred at 6:32 a.m. that day. She used the protest group’s hashtag, #ResistICENashville, in later tweets.
The story she eventually produced did not question the protestors, their motivations, or even their funding.
She even ignored Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson, who said the following about the protest:
We understand the need of the people to engage in protest. We understand the right of the people to engage in protest. I think that all of Nashville knows that over the years we have taken all reasonable steps to facilitate and accommodate those views and those rights as people have engaged in protests.
However, today’s actions, by a handful of persons, can only be interpreted as a deliberate and calculated measure to impact public safety and to unreasonably expend public resources. These actions, by a few, go far beyond any need to or right to express a point of view. At any future sentencing for these illegal acts, there should be corresponding and commensurate consequences.
Gill said he wonders what kinds of relationships protestors had with the newspaper’s staff members.
“Who knows what is at play between the reporters and whatever activist groups are engaged and funding these protests,” Gill said.
“These are the kinds of questions they should be asking, but perhaps they know the answer and they don’t just want to expose that their spouse or kinfolk or other relationships are involved in the stories they are writing.”
The media bias website Newsbusters has already identified The Tennessean as a left-leaning newspaper and called it out for liberal bias on more than one occasion.
Last week leftist protestors went to CoreCivic’s headquarters in Nashville and demanded the company abolish itself. They were so disruptive they blocked several of the building’s entrances. They were unhappy with CoreCivic officials, they said, because of that organization’s work for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Employees had to stay away from the building until the demonstrated ended, according to the Nashville Business Journal.
CoreCivic spokeswoman Amanda Gilchrist said what the activists had to say had no merit in fact.
“It’s clear that this group would rather use divisive rhetoric and falsehoods than engage in a fact-based discussion about the many challenges facing our country that we work every day to address,” Gilchrist told the publication.
“Despite the protesters’ choice to engage in disruptive behavior, CoreCivic employees are continuing to keep communities safe, enroll thousands of inmates in re-entry programs that prepare them for life after prison, and help manage humanitarian crises.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
