Columnist
Otis Sanford is a political columnist, author and professor emeritus in Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis.
There are 275 articles by Otis Sanford :
“With Republicans refusing to address high gas prices, heavy-handed immigration policies and blatant corruption by President Trump, Democrats have been handed all the ammunition they need to put their GOP opponents on the defensive. But instead, some are fighting each other.”
Unlike other Republican candidates, 5th District Republican nominee Charlie Hatcher’s campaign has said he’s willing to debate Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder, the district’s Democratic nominee.
“The scuttlebutt started at the Tennessee State Capitol several months before the U.S. Supreme Court took a scalpel to Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.”
“As a former newspaper editor with an impeccable reputation in daily and academic journalism circles, Ken Paulson is sounding the alarm about the increasing demise of editorials in local newspapers.”
Have Tennessee GOP leaders conveniently forgotten about the proven criminality in their own party?
My mother, along with a handful of other Black Panola County residents, registered to vote during one of the most precarious times for Black people in the South. It came just six days after the bodies of three Civil Rights workers were discovered in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
“(This) all adds up to being arguably the most significant county primary in recent memory. And it is almost exclusively a fight among Democrats who make up a majority of the more than 432,000 active registered voters.”
“Failing to take care of something so basic as filing a valid petition with 25 legitimate signatures shows an inattention to detail that warrants criticism.”
“The troubling thing about this case is that Ford learned nothing from all the past instances and allegations of local public corruption — some of it involving members of his own family.”
One issue arising from Alex Pretti’s senseless death is debatable. It is the extent of Memphis’ cooperation with federal law enforcement during the ongoing surge in the Bluff City.
“It’s one thing to wage a public fight against a divided MSCS board. It’s quite another to wage a costly political campaign against other, far more entrenched opponents.”
“So who is really soft on crime? Hint hint, it’s not the people you think.”
“This is a political moment that could determine, once and for all, if it’s time to pass the local baton from Baby Boomers to Millennials.”
At some point, U.S. District Judge Mark Norris will need to address his accusations against MPD publicly and either produce proof or issue a meaningful apology to the police department.
“When President Donald Trump announced Monday, Sept. 15, federal troops will now be deployed to the streets of Memphis, the cheerleading by Tennessee’s top three elected officials ... seemed much more concerned with revealing no trace of daylight between themselves and Trump.”
“In a way, I sympathize with the dilemma facing the U of M and other state colleges and universities. But, what’s next?”
One day in late May 1977, a young Black man took a seat at a desk for his first day as a reporter at The Commercial Appeal.
First it was Kash Patel — then Stephen A. Smith and Roland Martin.
“Our crime problem remains the No. 1 issue on the minds of area residents. And last week FBI Director Kash Patel added to the angst by summarily declaring Memphis ‘the homicide capital of America per capita.’”
After the Memphis-Shelby County Schools takeover bills failed to make it to the finish line, state Sen. Brent Taylor, R-Eads, and state Rep. Mark White, R-Memphis, changed their messaging.
State lawmakers are looking to eliminate the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, which looks into about 180 complaints about discrimination every month.
The Clarksdale Press Register garnered national attention recently after a judge ordered the paper to take down an editorial critical of Clarksdale’s elected officials.
“Now what we have is chaos on steroids. The board is seen as a laughingstock, except no one is laughing.”
From the DOJ’s report on the MPD to Elon Musk and the xAI supercomputer, here are Otis Sanford’s top five local stories for 2024.
The Crisis Intervention Team has strayed far from its initial goals of treating those with mental-health issues more humanely.