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The Tennessean

newspaper in Tennessee

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ4808006 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Tennessean (known until 1972 as The Nashville Tennessean) is a daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. Its circulation area covers 39 counties in Middle Tennessee and eight counties in southern Kentucky. It is owned by USA Today Co., which also owns several smaller community newspapers in Middle Tennessee, including The Dickson Herald, the Gallatin News-Examiner, the Hendersonville Star-News, the Fairview Observer, and the Ashland City Times. Its circulation area overlaps those of the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle and The Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, two other independent USA Today Co. owned papers. The company publishes several specialty publications, including Nashville Lifestyles magazine.

History

The Tennessean, Nashville's daily newspaper, traces its roots back to the Nashville Whig, a weekly paper that began publication on September 1, 1812. The paper underwent various mergers and acquisitions throughout the 19th century, emerging as the Nashville American.

The first issue of the Nashville Tennessean was printed on Sunday May 12, 1907. The paper was founded by Col.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Tennessean” as newspaper in Tennessee. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1972, 1812, 1907—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1907. The account is most persuasive where Tennessean, newspaper and Tennessee can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as newspaper in Tennessee. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4808006. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 1812 and 1907.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Tennessean”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Tennessean primary sources, The Tennessean archive and Tennessean research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Tennessean”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Tennessean” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.