I follow The Tennessee Holler ("Always Yell the Truth!"), which is the liveliest progressive citizen journalism anywhere and a great source on what's really happening in the corridors of power in Tennessee state government. That's just next door to Watauga County, and we ought to keep up with the neighbors.
The creator and pretty much sole reporter for The Holler, Justin Kanew, got the full press profile by NashvilleScene.com reporter Alejandro Ramirez. Kanew's background as a screenwriter in Los Angeles and a staffer for National Lampoon obviously conditioned him for the smart-aleckiness he has on display covering the legislature. He came back Tennessee from the West Coast in 2016 and almost immediately ran for a congressional seat in 2018 as a Democrat, galvanized by the first years of the Trump administration, but he got whipped for Congress. He then hatched the idea and started The Holler in 2019 as a platform where he could get his aggressions out and crusade for progressive causes. He has the reputation of confronting Republican lawmakers assertively, even rudely at times, shouting questions at their backs when they run away from him. "He's a jackass," one bigwig said (our jackass, I thought, and we need more).