Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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@#$%* New Year!

The patrones in TVA's inner sanctum are being as quiet as people with newly broken New Year's resolutions, but the rumor is strong and well-placed that big layoffs are in the offing at the agency/utility. Somewhere between a K and five K are expected to be handed RIF (Reduction in Force) papers now that the holidays are past. The effect would be heavy on Knoxville but much heavier on Chattanooga. Shows how much TVA is becoming more businesslike. Any self-respecting corporation of any size would have announced the cuts the week before Christmas.

Retractable Keys

On New Year's night, the CBS Evening News picked up an Oak Ridge story that its Knoxville affiliate, WVLT-TV (Channel 8) had run a month prior. The network correspondent, Cheryl Adkisson,

lifted most of her information from the WVLT piece about the discovery that there were several hundred missing keys to various Y-12 nuclear weapons plant ports of entry. Only problem was, she reported that the missing keys unlocked doors, not at Y-12, but at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a mistake that was caught by alert WVLT reporter Eric Waddell, who wasted no time getting hold of WVLT news director Steve Crabtree, who was home with the flu. Crabtree, in turn, dragged himself in off his sick bed the following day and called CBS in New York. Within a half hour, the correspondent and producer were calling him back. And by lunchtime that day, a correction/retraction went up on the CBS Evening News web site. On Saturday's evening news, Waddell did an extensive story clarifying the whole issue, and CBS aired a rare full retraction. ORNL Director of Communications Billy Stair was mightily pleased. "This story was turning into a firestorm. We were getting calls from National Public Radio, the Chicago Tribune....

It is not an easy thing to get a correction on a network news story, but Steve did an outstanding job of getting the mother ship to get the story straight. Losing 200 or more keys to a nuclear facility is something that could be extremely damaging to our relationship with the Department of Energy." The Department of Energy, by the way, did an audit and determined that none of the keys unlocked any doors to areas where nuclear (or "nookular," for the Presidentially speech-impaired) materials are stored. New keys are being made, and the world found out that the story had nothing to do with ORNL. And one more thing: Channel 8 got it right, from the get-go.

That Dog Won't Hunt, Either

Speaking of the one-eyed TV network, local attorney and Preservation Pub co-owner Richard Gaines was featured on CBS' 60 Minutes last Sunday in a story about the constitutionality and reliability of using trained dogs to detect the presence of illegal drugs. In a landmark case, Gaines effectively beat the system by having an arraigned couple released, despite having more than 650 pounds of marijuana in their possession. By exposing that the dog used to detect the narcotics had a reliability rating of less than 35 percent, the couple was acquitted...and Gaines ended up on television.

Red Truck, Red Suit, but...

It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the downtown Firehall #1, where the firefighters had invited a few dozen of their closest friends to a holiday party. Now, it must be made clear from the beginning that this shindig was paid for by the fireguys themselves, and they didn't go out of service, as has sometimes been the custom when entertaining VIP guests like mayoral candidates (not that firefighters do any politicking).

That meant that when an emergency call came in from the Fort Sanders area, Santa Claus (AKA firefighter Justin Goehring), had to set aside the tot on his lap (who happened to be the daughter of City Councilman Chris Woodhull and wife Laurence) and jump on the firetruck—white beard, red suit and all. We'd be remiss if we didn't report that Goerhing had his turnout gear on the truck in anticipation of just such an emergency, and Knoxville was well protected that night, despite the decking of the firehalls, where a generation of well-connected children were left with proof positive that Santa Claus is a fireman. One of the kids, however, didn't seem to be all that impressed after an extensive tour of the big red fire engines garaged at #1. When Santa asked three-year-old Sonny Frost (whose mom and dad are Erin and Councilman Rob Frost) what he wanted for Christmas, Sonny didn't hesitate a second:

"Police car," he said.

Y'all-a Culpa

The News Sentinel used two full pages of its Sunday edition, including half the front page, to present an exhaustive, well-researched package of stories about the crimes committed by door-to-door magazine sales agents and the lack of any requirement that their backgrounds be checked before they are sent into the nation's neighborhoods. Not once in the thousands of words of reporting did the NS editors find it germane to mention that the newspaper itself has recently been conducting a door-to-door subscription campaign manned by people who say, in some instances, "I'm working my way through college selling the News Sentinel," nor did they point with pride to the background-check procedures their company employs...or does it?