Local journalism has a funny way of showing you the full range of life. Spend enough time in this line of work, and you’ll find yourself writing about everything from heartbreak and tension to hope and triumph, sometimes in the span of a few weeks.
In April 2019, I covered the $32.2 million economic impact
of the Bassmaster Classic and a downtown resident reflecting on 25 years of change from her Gay Street balcony. I also wrote about a local Quidditch league and reviewed the bathrooms of Market Square.Not everyone would call the last two “serious” journalism, but seriousness shouldn’t be a journalist’s sole barometer.
I remember meeting a former News Sentinel reporter at a bar shortly after moving to East Tennessee and telling him about some
of the personality-driven stories I was pursuing. His off-target response has stuck with me after all these years: “If that's journalism nowadays, I'm glad I’m no longer in the business.”
That view of journalism misses an awful lot of life.
Some stories matter because of their stakes. Some matter because of what they reveal about a place. One day, a reporter may be spotlighting a community that's demanding answers about how its tax dollars are spent. The next, people could be running around Knoxville with broomsticks between their legs, tossing colorful balls through hoops.
Good local journalism doesn't just capture what happens in a community. At its best, it captures what it feels like to live here. That means documenting the “serious” moments while also preserving the quirks and inside jokes that give a place its personality.
I've been thinking about this a lot while reporting on Knoxville's comedy scene. Comedians understand the connective power of a shared laugh, when a roomful of different people recognize the same absurdity at the same time.
I should probably disclose here that I love stand-up. It's part of what made me interested in telling the story of the scene in the first place. I even tried it once when some friends who knew I had been working on a set secretly signed me up at an open mic we were watching. (Please don't ever do this.)
I survived, barely, and came away with an even greater appreciation for anyone willing to get onstage and try to make a room full of strangers laugh. But I also held back more than I should have. Part of me was thinking like a journalist, worried that getting too silly or going too far would make people take me less seriously. I've loosened up since then.
Leaving laughter off the record entirely can keep journalists from telling the full story of a place. But humor can be more than something journalists document. It can be part of how we report.
I was reminded of this while watching "You Can See Everything," codirected by Nathan Fielder, who has built a career on elaborate comedic antics and viral moments. You could feel the anticipation in the theater over how someone with such a history would approach the serious subject matter of Elizabeth Holmes and the claims she made about Theranos that led to her conviction.
But Fielder's humor didn't diminish the documentary's seriousness. Rather, his deadpan delivery and willingness to make himself part of the story became tools for revealing absurdity by taking it seriously, while forcing viewers to remain skeptical of what they're being told.
The scale and approach may be different, but the underlying lesson applies to local journalism, too. We aren’t comedians, but that doesn’t mean journalists have to drain the humor out of things that are inherently funny. Sometimes that means getting oddly invested in soap dispensers and the privacy of Market Square bathroom stalls.
For higher education reporter Keenan Thomas, it recently meant devising “totally foolproof” ways to sneak victory cigars into Neyland Stadium. And it's why video specialist Sophie Szydlik and I decided to play a prank on Vols fans, asking them to describe the differences between Yee-Haw Brewing Company’s original Vol Lager and its Dark Mode version. They obliged, some with impressively detailed tasting notes, before we delivered the punchline: same beer, different can.
Humor in journalism also means recognizing the jokes, characters and shared references that already belong to a place. Storyteller reporter Hayden Dunbar Evans helped explain why generations of Knoxvillians call a North Broadway grocery store “Fellini Kroger” and revisited the antics of Mad Jack Fielden for this reason.
Downtown business owner Scott West has called Knoxville “The City with More Balls Than Most,” a wink at two unmistakable pieces of the skyline: the Sunsphere and the oversized ball and hoop at the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. It's silly. It's local. And if you're from here, you immediately get it.
Someday, Knox News archives will tell people how that skyline evolved, how the city and county adjusted to a wave of newcomers looking to call East Tennessee home and how residents mourned the loss of beloved people, businesses and traditions. But those archives also should reveal the strange little things that made people who lived here look at one another and laugh.
A city with this much personality deserves journalism with some personality, too.
Ryan Wilusz is the business growth and development editor for Knox News. Email: ryan.wilusz@knoxnews.com; Cell: 865-317-5138; Instagram: @knoxscruff.
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Laughter belongs in local journalism, especially in a place like Knoxville | Opinion
