Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter.
For me, and for most of my fellow millennials in the journalism industry, the idea of spending more than two decades in the same job seems unfathomable. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to, but I’ve never made it more than four years without being laid off or experiencing circumstances so unbearable that I have no choice but to quit.
Alison Gerber arrived at the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2003 as an assistant metro editor. (I first met her the following year, when I landed in Chattanooga for my first real newspaper internship, though she wasn’t my editor.) In 2011, she was named the top editor.
She didn’t leave that job until this summer, when the newspaper was sold and the new owners cleaned house, firing her and more than fifty employees. Several others quit soon after, followed by a smaller second round of layoffs. The new CEO, a local freight executive and luxury magazine publisher named Craig Fuller (who bought the paper with his father, Max), has said his goal is to “follow the Elon Musk playbook” by cutting out “massive levels of bureaucracy” (a characterization of her newsroom Gerber strongly disputes) in order to make the paper profitable. In CJR this week, Riddhi Setty wrote about Fuller’s arrival in the newsroom, where he has prohibited reporters from disclosing their use of AI in articles and has offered hundred-dollar monthly reimbursement for employees who buy GLP-1s through one of his other companies.
I talked to Gerber about her time leading the TFP, which led to three Pulitzer nominations and, for the past two years, recognition as the best large newspaper in Tennessee. Listen below, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Show notes:
Alison Gerber, “Goodbye to Mark Kennedy—and to an era,” Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Alison Gerber, “A Times Free Press reporter traveled to Mexico for a story. Here’s why,” Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Craig Fuller, “Plans for the Times Free Press put Chattanoogans, families first,” Chattanooga Times Free Press.
“Report: Local Group Buying Chattanooga Times Free Press from Arkansas Owners,” Chattanoogan.com.
Riddhi Setty, “The New Boss at The Chattanooga Times Free Press,” Columbia Journalism Review.
Credits:
Host: Megan Greenwell
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.
