By Ellen Clegg
The news was posted on Facebook, and it provoked immediate ire. Which, to be fair, is on brand for Facebook. Dan Conaway, a columnist for the Daily Memphian, reported that he had quit the prominent digital news outlet because his column blasting Donald Trump had been censored.
“I have left the Daily Memphian,” Conaway posted on his public feed. “They refused to run my column this week. Too critical of Trump, they said. Trump is not local, they said. This week, of all weeks, Trump is not local? Enough, I said.”
The subject seemed like fair game. In September, President Trump announced that the National Guard would be deployed to Memphis and told Fox News that the city is “deeply troubled.” He added: “And by the way, we’ll bring in the military, too, if we need it.” Which, to be fair, is also on brand for the 47th president.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, welcomed the move. Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, didn’t support the deployment but told a news conference, “It’s not the mayor’s call,” according to The Washington Post.
The local deployment of troops demands scrutiny by hard-charging independent news outlets, and Memphis is lucky to have a journalistic ecosystem that has evolved and deepened significantly in recent years. Although the legacy daily newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, has shrunk under Gannett’s cost-cutting ownership, three nonprofit digital outlets are covering the city: the Memphian, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, and the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis. Dan Kennedy and I featured Memphis in a chapter in our book, “What Works in Community News,” and interviewed MLK50 founder Wendi Thomas as well as Memphian columnist and academic Otis Sanford on our “What Works” podcast. I interviewed Memphian editor Eric Barnes during a trip to the city and sat in on a briefing at MLK50.
So what in the name of John Peter Zenger was going on, I wondered? Then the Memphian clapped back with a sharp editor’s note. It reads in part:
Dan Conaway’s column this week was left in limbo after Dan quit The Daily Memphian. This disruption led some readers to believe we had bowed to pressure to not run a column critical of President Donald Trump. But this is false.
We had asked Dan to make a number of minor edits before publication — specifically to cite his sources and to remove a reference to Uptown that we thought diminished the column’s strength — but during our discussions, Dan instead finally said, “I’ll just quit.”
The note cites other columns in the Memphian that have been critical of Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard — including two written by Conaway. Other articles and an opinion column quote city residents who support the deployment. The Memphian editor’s note goes on to say: “As we have been from the beginning, The Daily Memphian remains committed to publishing all points of view.”
In a commendable act of candor, The Memphian published Conaway’s column as submitted. It’s essentially a personal reflection on why his father joined the Navy the week after the attack on Pearl Harbor, which drew the United States into World War II. Conaway compares then and now: The valor of U.S. troops fighting fascism in Europe and the Pacific Theater to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordering generals to diet and shave; the diversion of our military from protecting the nation from threats abroad to attacking Trump’s political enemies in American cities.
Fine so far. But then came Conaway’s stunner of a kicker, a trashy turn of racist juvenalia that must unfortunately be quoted here to be believed:
One man has put 340 million people at risk of losing this democracy. Just as surely as he’s made the Oval Office look like an Uptown whorehouse waiting room…
The Uptown neighborhood in Memphis grew out of a federal redevelopment project aimed at pulling people out of poverty by providing affordable housing. But efforts to upgrade the housing haven’t necessarily been easy, and in 2022 the Institute for Public Service Reporting dug into issues that led to displacement of residents who had few resources to fall back on.
Memphian editors made a prudent decision to ask Conaway to strike his line about the whorehouse. That’s called editing, not censorship. They also had a valid point in asking for a tighter local focus, which is central to the Memphian’s mission. There are countless other digital corners in which to find hot takes on Trump, albeit probably without the whorehouse waiting room.
But ultimately, Conaway’s self-righteous Facebook paean against censorship is misleading. The version of his column that he posted is in fact edited to leave out his outrageous language about the whorehouse and substitutes the glitzy French palace of Versailles:
One man has put 340 million people at risk of losing this democracy. Just as surely as he’s made the Oval Office look like a bad imitation of royal chambers at Versailles…
Editors typically toil behind the scenes. The public rarely sees their work, even as the best editors work in tandem with reporters to the benefit of readers. So pour one out for the Memphian editors who showed their work and were transparent about two perfectly understandable and professional requests: tighten up the local focus — and jettison the blatantly racist trope.
That was a nice read, I’ve always loved reading Dan’s articles, he’s gifted and will be missed. But like so much going on with politics these days, all are having to tread lightly as things are as divisive as ever.
Thanks for sharing.
Congratulations on your new work, Ellen. Excellent column.
Thank you, Luisita!
Jumping through hoops to play the race card. What good journalism
I support the Memphis daily. Keep up the good work
Actually, read Dan’s reply to the Daily Memphian’s post of his column. He quoted his editor’s email, stating the paper was not publishing the column. It was then that he quit.
It seems as though this article was reported using Facebook posts and one DM article as the primary sources. This is insufficient reporting for a column attempting to dissect a very serious accusation. I’d encourage you to reach out to Mr.Conaway, as he published email exchanges with his now-former editor. It is not a good look for The Daily Memphian.
I read numerous columns by Conaway and others before writing an opinion column about the facts as they were presented by Conaway in his social posts and by the Memphian. I am planning a follow up to look at how the local media ecosystem in Memphis is covering the deployment and have interview queries out to Conaway and others. But I’d love to know whether you thought the Uptown whorehouse joke was appropriate.
Conaway has said his “Uptown whorehouse” was not alluding to Memphis’ Uptown. That being said, I find the remark distasteful and lazy. However, it’s not the primary source of concern, for me.
The DM has often been received by it’s critics as an occasional propaganda arm for the Memphis Chamber of Commerce; this incident pushes these concerns into a new, disturbing territory.
But this is a lie. Youre lying. Conaway posted the receipts and even easily refuted the idea he said anything racist. Are you going to update this “analysis” to refleft the fasct the DM was caught in the lie and exposed?
Please elaborate – what do you think is the lie? I plan a follow-up.
“…but during our discussions…” is the lie. They stated they weren’t publishing, and that means end of discussion, not during. They say he quit for edits, but he made the edits and THEN they said they’re not publishing anyway. Check the emails, because the lie is right there.
This reminds me of the “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
Time for the rest of the story: forgiveness/retraction.
it is a huge reach to say Dan meant Uptown Memphis. as someone who spent years in that city I can tell you that makes no sense in this context. Dan’s explanation of what he did mean on facebook adds up. Super weird to just jump to conclusions and call him racist when Ellen is just ignorant to how Memphians would read that line….the DM editors didnt even claim he meant Uptown memphis.
Then why did the editors – in Memphis – ask him to alter it?
Because they didn’t want to liken the Oval Office to a whorehouse. Duh.
As a journalist did you ask the editors? Did you ask Dan?
Shoddy work. One sided. Dan has the receipts, but you didn’t even bother to interview him.
The “whorehouse” reference suggests how Trump has degraded the office of the President in so many disgraceful ways. It is strong rhetoric, but had to be strong to express the depth and breadth of his damage to the ethos of his office. The reference also describes implicitly the unfortunate group of characters that Trump has elevated to major offices in his Presidency. It requires a powerful rhetoric to engage the magnitude of Trump’s impact on our culture.