Thanking readers for their support in 2020
A month ago a reader left me a voice mail complimenting The Commercial Appeal for publishing the Confederate Reckoning series. She said the series, which was coordinated in Memphis and involved a dozen staffers in five Southern states, reinforced her decision to subscribe to The CA.
Yet it is the support of that reader and tens of thousands of others who subscribe to The CA that make such work possible. As we close out 2020, a challenging year on so many fronts, I want to thank our readers and subscribers for supporting The CA and local journalism. Your investment in our journalism is a solid bet, as I think you would recognize based on our track record this year, when a global health pandemic, a national and local reckoning on race and a divisive presidential election dominated the news.
Whether you are a full-access subscriber who gets the newspaper delivered to your home, a digital subscriber or single-copy buyer, we appreciate your support.
Throughout this year, The CA has flexed its muscles to provide watchdog and explanatory coverage of important issues, including a recent investigation by Katherine Burgess and Sarah Macaraeg into Shelby Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. ushering in a $450,000 grant to the local Junior Achievement group and then selling the non-profit computers from his firm. Daniel Connolly recently wrote about alarming delays in ambulance response times tied to the pandemic as well as longstanding structural issues in Memphis.
These watchdog stories, along with many of our other features, are subscriber-only stories.
Not a subscriber? Consider becoming one and joining more than 35,000 others who get unlimited access to our content, including awardwinning photography, videos and photo galleries. You can access our latest digital subscription offers here: https://cm.commercialappeal.com/specialoffer/.
Throughout 2020, The CA has sought to provide context on fast-moving national events and how they affect the Memphis area. Though the year has been a challenge – with CA staffers working remotely since mid-march – 2020 has been a canvas upon which our staff has done its best work. We also benefit from our sister newspapers’ coverage of statewide COVID-19 issues in Tennessee and Mississippi along with national political and economy coverage from USA TODAY.
I am especially proud of The CA’S coronavirus coverage, both news coverage and enter
prise stories that provide background, context and meaning behind the news. Two recent examples: Sam Hardiman’s analysis of how Shelby County’s Safer at Home plan shows the limits of the plan to blunt the spread of the virus and Corinne Kennedy’s mid-october piece on hospitals preparing for the surge we are experiencing now.
A few months ago we started a weekly COVID-19 question-and-answer feature with Dr. Manoj Jain, a Memphis infectious disease specialist. His latest piece explains what a virus mutation would mean and how we can minimize the damage. It’s a must-read. If you want to submit a question for Dr. Jain to answer, please email the question to him at metro@commercialappeal.com.
While we are focused on COVID-19 coverage, we also offered other stories of lives interrupted around Memphis: Longtime CA reporter John Beifuss wrote about making a movie in Memphis during the pandemic while CA food writer and cookbook author Jennifer Chandler writes with authority about the Memphis restaurant scene. Chandler’s recent story about Memphis restaurants that closed in the past year is an unfortunate trip down memory lane.
Of course, no year-end editor’s note is complete unless there’s a discussion of sports. And, in Memphis, that largely revolves around the Tigers and Grizzlies. Our sports columnist, Mark Giannotto, reporters Evan Barnes, Khari Thompson and Jason Munz form a dynamic team.
That foursome, along with photographers Joe Rondone and Ariel Cobbert, took you behind the scenes for storytelling and images that put you in the middle of the action. That is more important than ever now that fans are not currently allowed to attend Tigers or Grizzlies games at Fedexforum.
And, of course, we started 2020 by publishing “Mighty Roar: The Story of the 2019 Memphis Tigers Football Team,” a book that featured stories and photos from our CA staff and chronicled the remarkable season that ended with the hometown team playing in the Cotton Bowl versus Penn State. You can buy the book at this link. We are donating the book’s net proceeds to the U of M’s Tiger Athletic Fund, and that donated figure is currently at $4,000.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what we can do better, what we should continue doing or what you think we should stop doing. My contact information is below.
Meantime, here’s to a safe, healthy and news-filled 2021.
Mark Russell is executive editor of The Commercial Appeal.
You can contact him at mark.russell@commercialappeal.com, 901/529-2302 or you can follow him at this Twitter address: @markrussell44