Phil Williams Says The Stanley Blackmailer Didn’t Try To Sell Him The McKensie Shots

By Kleinheider Posted on July 23, 2009 at 11:24 am

Jeff Woods reports:

In a text message read aloud during Joel Watts’ preliminary hearing on extortion charges this week, Watts tells Sen. Paul Stanley he’s been offered $7,500 for the pictures. The message:

“News 5 independent reporter currently at 7500 do the math now report at.”

Pith just spoke to Williams, who is whipping every other reporter in the state on this story, and he says he’s not the guy.

“Absolutely not. It’s not me,” he says, adding that his TV station doesn’t practice checkbook journalism. “We do not pay for anything.”

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Tags: blackmail, extortion, hypocrisy, Joel Palmer Watts, McKensie Morrison, Paul Stanley, Phil Williams  

Open The Records, But Limit The Access To Gatekeepers

By Kleinheider Posted on March 21, 2009 at 3:56 pm

Phil Williams struggles to find a compromise on handgun permit open records:

Of course, there are some gun-rights advocates who think no one should have access to any of that information — no how, no way — and, for them, there’s no sense even talking about compromise.

But others, like Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, have expressed an interest in finding middle ground — which is where I find myself, professionally and personally.

For years, NewsChannel 5 has obtained a database of every gun-permit holder in the state of Tennessee. But, unlike other news organizations, we never considered posting the raw data on the Internet so that people could look up their neighbors. Weighing the potential benefit versus the potential invasion of privacy, we came down on the side of privacy.

What we did, however, was to responsibly use the data to expose how state government was failing in its responsibility to protect the public.

Using that database, we matched the full names and dates of birth of the permit holders against the full names and dates of birth of convicted felons from another state database.

UPDATE: Williams takes issue with this blog posting in the comments:

Headline is extremely misleading. I never said “limit access to gatekeepers.” I just laid out what I, as a journalist, need to be able to perform the same watchdog function as I do today.

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Tags: Handgun permits, open records, Phil Williams, Ron Ramsey  

All In Good Fun

By Kleinheider Posted on July 23, 2008 at 7:04 am

Investigative reporter Phil Williams has more shenanigans from a weeklong training session for employees of the state’s Department of Revenue:

Then, there’s video that shows revenue staffers dancing at what appears to be a funeral.

“We apparently have a dead taxpayer and a grieving widow — and these people dancing around to a 50 Cent song,” Johnson observes.

“Go. Go. Go, money.
It’s your tax day.
We’re gonna party.
Like it your tax day.”

“Is this what the department of revenue thinks of us, the taxpayers?” Johnson asks. “We die and maybe they should audit our family and see if they can get more money?”

Commissioner Farr says, “I think most of this was done in fairly good fun.”

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Tags: Department of Revenue, Drew Johnson, Phil Williams, Reagan Farr  

TV News Challenges Gag Order

By Kleinheider Posted on July 5, 2008 at 11:47 pm

Tom Wood breaks the story of Newschannel 5’s constitutional challenge to a gag order issued to witnesses testifying in the John Ford trial. One of the those witnesses happens to be investigative reporter Phil Williams:

The TV station and Williams filed suit late Thursday in federal court, raising a constitutional objection to the gag order. “To the extent that the court’s order restricts Mr, Williams and/or NewsChannel 5 from reporting on this trial, it is a ‘prior restraint’ of the free speech and free press that is impermissible under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” they charged.

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Tags: gag order, John Ford, NewsChannel5, Phil Williams