Knoxville Newspapers: Metro Pulse Offers Alternative
Most major cities have a weekly or bi-weekly alternative paper meant to offer different perspectives on, and even dispute, the reporting of the major dailies. Knoxville's alternative paper is the Metro Pulse. Like so many great Knoxville ideas, the Metro Pulse was hashed out over pizza at The Tomato Head in Market Square. Seeking first to provide an entertainment guide and calendar to the UT and downtown crowd, the Metro Pulse has evolved to include feature stories and quality news reporting with an alternative flair. With weekly columns such as Jack Neely’s Secret History, which offers an historic perspective on today's Knoxville, and the news and coverage sections such as Ear to the Ground, covering state and local political news, and Eye on the Scene, featuring entertainment news, the Pulse has carved out a steady and devoted Knoxville readership.
The Pulse entered the Knoxville media scene in 1991. It wasn't long, however, that one of Knoxville's two daily papers, the Knoxville Journal, foundered, leaving the Knoxville News Sentinel as the sole paper. (The Journal has since been brought back into publication.) People began to turn to the Pulse for its occasional reporting on local stories, creating a demand for a more. Whittle Communication’s 1994 layoffs provided quality writers to the Pulse, helping to expand coverage and capacity, and Joe Sullivan’s 1992 purchase of the paper (he once wrote for the Wall Street Journal) set the Metro Pulse up for a successful future. What started as a bi-weekly paper, the Metro Pulse moved to weekly publication in 1995, the year after it published its first Best of Knoxville survey, which has been conducted annually since. The paper's 1996 website launch expanded its readership and exposure to the world, generating email from "France, Hong Kong, even Iraq." Awards began to mount, along with the impressive careers of the staff writers and artists. Today, readership of 35,000 looks to the Metro Pulse for its "in-depth reporting, unrestrained critical writing, and simply the best arts and entertainment calendar in town." In 2007 Scripps, the owner of Knoxville News Sentinel, acquired Metro Pulse. Since that time, Metro Pulse has remained autonomous and loyal to its devoted readership.
