Categories: OLD Media Moves

How the Nashville Biz Journal investigated a restaurant company

Lori Becker of the Nashville Business Journal writes about how one of her reporters, Eleanor Kennedy, investigated a company opening a number of restaurants in the city.

Becker writes, “Eleanor persisted. She knew there was a story here, as T.C. continued to open high-profile bars and buy up prime downtown property. So she dove into the Field brothers’ backgrounds, discovering a trail of litigation, IRS investigations, felony convictions and prison time.

“We again requested an interview with T.C., this time with Hesler and the Field brothers. Hesler’s attorney responded, agreeing to an interview. But he didn’t make the Fields available: ‘TCRG speaks through its CEO,’ he said in an email.

“All the while, Eleanor kept digging. She reviewed hundreds of pages of court records, city documents and media reports from across the country. Her reporting found cases from Tennessee to Ohio, Colorado to New Jersey, Arkansas to Florida.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.