Paging Ms. ‘Bleep’

The City Paper
December 4, 2006

The Tennessean’s new transportation reporter/columnist Kate Howard, aka Ms. Beep, reported two stories that sourced Sen. Mark Norris last week – stories Norris is now disputing.

Norris, a Republican from the Memphis suburb of Collierville, is the chairman of the Senate’s Transportation Committee. Howard reported that Norris was considering the idea of proposing to change the way transportation is funded in Tennessee by taxing gas by the miles you drive as opposed to how many gallons you buy. She reported it was going to be discussed in the Senate Transportation Committee.

Norris and his staff were shocked to read Howard’s report in The Tennessean the next day.

Norris never said he liked the idea of taxing gas by the miles a person drove in his interview with Howard. Norris merely told Howard that that was one idea discussed in a federal transportation hearing recently held in Shelby County.

As a result of the snafu, a meeting was held with The Tennessean’s editorial board Thursday. Norris was promised that the journalistic screw-up would be rectified. It wasn’t.

In Friday’s paper, the quasi-clarification gave the impression that Norris had originally supported taxing gas by the mile and had backtracked as a result of “Internet message boards and talk radio shows” being “abuzz with opposition.” To make matters worse, Howard credited her story – which turned out to be inaccurate – for creating the buzz.

Norris’s side of the story was buried until after the account jumped to the inside.