John Oliver praised him as “Nashville’s nosiest bitch.” A far-right mayoral candidate branded him “fake news.” But Phil Williams, chief investigative reporter for Tennessee’s NewsChannel 5, doesn’t care what you call him—as long as you call with tips about liars, frauds, and hypocrites.
“As my general manager points out, if you want to be popular, investigative reporting is not the job for you,” Williams, 62, told The Daily Beast in a Zoom interview last week. “But it’s important work and you just have to take the good with the bad.”
Williams’ national profile has grown exponentially in recent weeks because of his investigation into Alderman Gabrielle Hanson, a far-right candidate for mayor in Franklin, Tennessee, where she’ll face voters on Tuesday. His relentless reporting has uncovered Hanson’s ties to white supremacists; her husband’s Speedo-flaunting—at her alleged behest—at a 2008 pride parade; and her social media photo of a group of “supporters” who have since denounced her and claim they don’t even know her.
His coverage made Hanson national news—the revelations have been featured on MSNBC and in The Guardian and The Daily Beast. It has also unleashed a barrage of attacks from Hanson and her supporters on Williams. Some of Hanson’s backers—members of what the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a “white nationalist hate group”—have disparaged Williams as a “hair lip [sic] lying sack of shit” for the “international jew media” on the social messaging app Telegram.
“I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about these hate groups,” Williams said. “I think I live rent-free in their heads more than they live in mine. I think some of them are craving attention, and I have no desire to give them more attention unless it’s necessary.”
Williams might be a new name to many outside Tennessee, but the Hanson investigation is just the latest journalistic juggernaut in a 25-year career at NewsChannel 5. He began his career in print at Florida Today before later moving to the Tennessean—where he was a Pulitzer finalist in 1990 for a two-year investigation into the state’s charity bingo industry and, at Nashville’s local ABC affiliate, a 1993 Peabody Award winner for his coverage of the Tennessee General Assembly. He’s won the Peabody two more times, along with four duPonts and one Polk award, among others.
The roots of this career of sniffing out corruption were planted at an early age. Williams is a self-described “child of Watergate,” captivated by the ability of reporters to shine a spotlight on government malfeasance. He also saw the lengths his taxi-driving father had to go through to get a new job as a prison guard.
“He basically was told, ‘Listen, if you want to get this state job, it really will help if he goes to see the local political boss and slides him a bit of money to get his endorsement,’” Williams said. “So I remember going with my dad to see the local political boss and him having to scrounge up the money to attach to his application for a state job.”
The experience taught Williams the mantra that has guided him throughout his career: Power changes people, and it doesn’t distinguish by party. “Human beings are fallible and subject to being changed by power,” he said.
Fallible humans are the main characters in a Phil Williams story. His work at NewsChannel 5 includes the investigation of a county clerk who owned a slot machine in the office breakroom and whose deputy physically pushed Williams out when he found it; a dive into how some Tennessee police departments profited off cash seized from drivers on the mere suspicion it was drug money; and how a Democratic state senator used his political perch to take money from special interests.
“My best stories are when people are clearly lying either about themselves or about what they're trying to do,” Williams said. “That’s why the most recent stories out of Franklin, Tennessee have resonated so much… Gabrielle Hanson clearly took a photo that was not of a group of supporters and claimed that it was. She brought white supremacists to a candidates' forum. There’s not a whole lot of gray when it comes to that kind of story.”
Wading into the black-and-white, the good-and-evil of it all has made Williams some serious enemies. He faced lawsuits and death threats from subjects of his reporting well before he trained his suspicious mind on Hanson. He’s hesitant to respond to attacks he’s faced from her supporters at the Tennessee Active Club, which dredged up and publicized the details of his wife’s alcoholism-related death and posted a fake photo of Williams in blackface.
He says these tactics never have the intended effect. After a 2000 investigation led to death threats from self-described “actual literal Nazi” Brad Lewis, Williams said he was asked whether it was worth pursuing the story.
“My photographer came into my office, closed the door, and said, ‘Are you sure you want to keep up with, keep on doing this?’” he said. “My response at the time was, ‘If I don’t do it, who will?’”
His perseverance and results have not gone unnoticed by higher-ups at NewsChannel 5, which spent all of last week commemorating Williams’ quarter-century with the network.
“It’s a good thing for us to recognize Phil, who is the best of the best,” said Lyn Plantinga, its vice president and general manager. “But it’s also a boost and an encouragement for every journalist out there that’s got their head down. They’re pursuing truth, they’re being guided by facts, and they’re doing great work in newsrooms, local, and national all across this country.”
Plantinga came across Williams when he was working at the local ABC affiliate WKRN and did a story that “was not the kind of investigative work that I know is his passion.”
“I turned to my boss, who was the director, and I said, ‘You need to hire Phil Williams,’” Plantinga said. “You could just feel that he was not doing the work that he wanted to do and I knew what he was capable of.”
Although he’s proud to be a local journalist, some of his stories have broken out of Nashville’s borders and into the cultural zeitgeist. His “policing for profit” investigation inspired an episode of The Good Wife, and late-night comedians have featured his reporting.
He was also announced last month as the 2023 recipient of Columbia Journalism School’s John Chancellor Award, which honors outstanding achievements in journalism. Past recipients include household names like PBS’ Gwen Ifill, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, and NBC News’ Richard Engel.
“Phil Williams’ work sets a high standard and is a stellar example of the good local reporting can do,” Dean Jelani Cobb said in the award announcement. “At a time when local newsrooms are under threat, we are proud to honor Phil’s career with the John Chancellor Award.”
Williams doesn’t ever see himself fully retiring—it’s hard to unplug from journalism. He wants to write a memoir, but he admits even his weekly goal of two or three walks outside is hard to achieve.
“I fail at that most weeks,” Williams admitted.
He recounted a recent conversation he had with his 24-year-old son, who asked him how he feels when he wraps up an investigation.
“Keep looking for the next mountain,” Williams said. “I don’t have a pot of gold that I’m pursuing. It’s, ‘OK, well I climbed that mountain. What’s the next mountain?’”
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