The Tennessean Losing Good Peebles: Veteran Government Editor Departs To Texas
Posted on August 22, 2008 at 7:18 pmFirst, you get the Pulle, then you get the Peebles, then you get the pageviews.
Post Politics has learned that Tennessean Government Editor Jennifer Peebles will depart 1100 Broadway two weeks from today for sunny Houston, Texas. Peebles will take the title of Deputy Editor at a new non-profit news site she helped found, Texas Watchdog.
Peebles confirmed the news late this evening, “I’m really excited about going to work for Trent [Seibert], but leaving here is really hard.”
Earlier this month, Post Politics reported that Peebles had helped set up, and would sit on the board of, the startup. At the time, Peebles had every intention of being just a helpful and watchful remote eye from Tennessee for fellow co-founders, Trent Seibert and Lee Ann O’Neal. It appears, however, that the lure of the Astrodome was too much.
Editor-in-Chief Seibert couldn’t be happier that the woman responsible for “75% Texas Watchdog’s vision” will come on board as a full-time staffer.
“She’s one of the best editors I’ve ever worked with over my career and we are all thrilled to get her to come with us on a full-time basis. I feared she wouldn’t leave Tennessee but I believe she was comforted by the fact they’ve got statues of famous Tennessean Sam Houston up everywhere,” Seibert tells Post Politics excitedly. “Truth be told, that makes us all feel right at home. Jennifer can crunch numbers like Stephen Hawking and can see through politicians’ bullsh** like she’s got a radar built into her head. She is instrumental in complex stories.”
Peebles, of course, joins not just Seibert and O’Neal but Matt Pulle as well as Tennessee journalists leaving to contribute to Seibert’s new Texas venture in what is becoming somewhat of a Tennessee journalism brain drain.
“I feel I’m creating a halfway house of sorts. You know, ‘Seibert’s Home for Wayward Journalists,’ or something similar,” Seibert quips. “But it’s my kind of halfway house. We’ve got a bottle of vodka in my bottom drawer.”
In The Pink: Ridley To Take Over Managing Editor Duties At Scene
Posted on August 20, 2008 at 2:39 pmPost Politics has learned that Nashville Scene Senior Writer and film critic Jim Ridley, known to Pith in the Wind readers as “mr. pink”, will succeed Matt Pulle as Managing Editor of the Nashville Scene.
In 1994, Ridley was one of the first hires of the Scene in its current incarnation after making the transition from a local shopper into its current alt-weekly form under Bruce Dobie and Albie Del Favero.
Born in Murfreesboro and a life-long resident of Middle Tennessee, at nineteen years and counting, Ridley is the longest serving editorial staffer at the Nashville Scene.
UPDATE: Matt Pulle responds to a request for comment on his successor:
“Jim’s is an extraordinarily talented editor and writer who has been the soul of the Scene for as long as it’s been around. He can cover anything, film obviously, but also politics, history, crime, food, whatever. His knowledge and appreciation of the city, which on any given day could touch on anything from the Symphony to a fried chicken shack on Gallatin Road, is exactly what the Scene needs right now. My only regret is that I never got to write for him.”
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Gone To Texas: Trent Seibert Uses His Pulle-Down Menu
Posted on at 12:24 pmThat’s right. Former Tennessean scribe, TV newshound and think-tanker Trent Seibert has offered former Nashville Scene-ster Matt Pulle an opportunity to go right back where he left Nashville for the first time: Dallas, Texas.
As a staff writer for the newly-formed 501(c) -to-be, Texas Watchdog, started by board members Seibert, Lee Ann O’Neal and Jennifer Peebles, Pulle will be stationed in his old stomping grounds of Dallas, Texas. Pulle spent three years in between stints at the Nashville Scene on the staff of alt-weekly the Dallas Observer.
Texas Watchdog Editor-in-Chief Trent Seibert can’t be happier regarding his first hiring coup.
“I’m tremendously excited about being able to work with Pulle. He’s a great wordsmith and he’s got an edge in his writing that I like, ” Seibert said when contacted by Post Politics. “As an added bonus with Pulle, we’ll have some creative tension in our newsroom. I think Pulle has slammed all of us (Board Members Jennifer Peebles, Lee Ann and me) at one time or another when he was doing media criticism with the Nashville Scene.”
That said, as far as Pulle is concerned, the pleasure with this new union of former Tennessee journalists is to be all on his side of the table.
“When Trent first came to The Tennessean a few years ago, I was amazed by how quickly he was able to get on the front page with really good, interesting stories–better than what anyone else was writing at the time. Honestly, I was a little jealous. I didn’t get to know him until a few years after that, but he was one of those rare guys who gets you excited about journalism and writing So when he offered me a job at his start-up and a chance to write about politics in Texas, I jumped at the chance.”
The Pulle gig, Post Politics is told, is only a three month firm commitment while Pulle decompresses from his brief eight month respite in Nashville and Texas Watchdog evaluates its position as a startup non-profit.
The fact is, however, Pulle is already on the case. A story regarding a certain Dallas-based money-man who has footed the bill for a certain ex-presidential candidate’s mistress is now live at the new, and now improved, Texas Watchdog.
Pulle-ing Up Stakes: Matt Pulle To Leave The Scene
Posted on August 15, 2008 at 2:51 pmAfter just over eight months on the job, Post Politics has learned that Nashville Scene Managing Editor Matt Pulle is departing the publication. Pulle, a six year veteran of the Scene from 1999 to 2005 returned to the Scene after a three-year stint at The Dallas Observer another Village Voice Media property in January.
Contacted by phone on a brief vacation, the respected investigative reporter and snarky blog poster told Post Politics that the move was not at all an abrupt one but something which had been considered for quite some time.
“I was very happy in Dallas,” explained Pulle, “The reason I came back to Nashville was the opportunity to work with [Former Editor] Liz [Garrigan]. Obviously that opportunity is no longer there.”
Pulle, however, bears no ill will towards the current regime led by Editor Pete Kotz whom he calls a “tremendously accomplished editor.”
Pulle explains the situation thusly, “When a football coach moves to a new team, he often brings on his own number two to implement the changes he wants to make. I think that Pete [Kotz] deserves that opportunity.”
As for what comes next for the career alt-weekly scribe, Pulle would only say he has a number of different and promising opportunities,”It’s not like I’m gonna be in the unemployment line.”
Indeed, Pulle confirms, there was no “leaving in a huff” as one Pith in the Wind commenter suggested earlier this afternoon. Pulle gave his notice this past Tuesday and will serve until mid-September to ease the transition until that aforementioned Kotz number two can be named.
UPDATE: Asked to comment, Liz Garrigan, former Nashville Scene Editor, remarked:
“Matt Pulle’s departure will be the Scene’s great loss — and the gain of whatever lucky soul snags this talent next. Habitues of fascinating, expertly crafted and well-reported journalism — except maybe James Weaver and Tony Giarratana, who will probably celebrate this news with exultation — no doubt will be anxiously hoping he doesn’t flee the industry altogether. I certainly count myself in that group. And while it’s probably not big enough to hold all of his admirers, I offer my house for the going-away bash.”
Garrigan Leaves The Scene
Posted on May 6, 2008 at 5:09 pmLiz Garrigan has just announced via Pith in the Wind that she will as of July 2008 no longer be the editor of the Nashville Scene:
My next gig is as editorial director of Magellan Media, an umbrella company of book imprints and (non-newspaper) publishing enterprises headed by Nashville businessman Bill King, someone I respect a great deal. I’ll be working on new projects, developing business, assessing ideas and other slightly vague and terrifying pursuits that will probably tempt me (let’s hope unf***ingsuccessfully) to use the word “synergy” and will doubtless cause me to awaken at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat. But that’s just it: My best work comes in the face of blind terror. Plus, after 12 years at one place—as political writer, news editor, associate editor, then editor—it’s time for this root-bound journalist to repot herself.
When I became editor in 2004, I informally imposed a five-year expiration date on the job, figuring that’s how long it would take to do the things I wanted to accomplish and still do them tirelessly, without becoming complacent. I’m crossing the finish line a year and change early.
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