Readers Get 'Tennessean' Interview With Steve McNair -- After His Death

By: Joe Strupp It is every newspaper's nightmare when it comes to pre-printed sections -- and ads. You print the section days ahead of time. But in between the production date and distribution date, something changes a story.

That happened with The Tennessean in Nashville. The paper's weekly Wednesday zoned section -- "A.M." -- is printed on Fridays, with some of the copies for non-subscribers packaged with ads and shipped out Saturday.

One of the zoned weeklies, "Davidson A.M." for the paper's Davidson County area, carried a front-page story on former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair opening the first of several restaurants. The "Gridiron9" eateries bear the number he used in his playing days. It even included an interview with McNair in which he said he hoped to open more of them.

But when word spread of McNair's tragic death in a murder-suicide Saturday, Tennessean officials had a dilemma. Some 134,000 copies for non-subscribers had already been packaged with ads and were set to be shipped for distribution Monday.

"We really could not find a feasible way to pull all of them back and re-do it in a reasonable time," said Bob Faricy, the Tennessean's vice president/market development.

Faricy said copies of the Davidson edition that would have been delivered with subscribers' papers were removed and replaced with a new version. But he said the version that goes to non-subscribers was not pulled back, with those copies going out carrying the McNair story.

A letter from Tennessean Publisher Ellen Leifeld was placed in the non-subscriber copies to explain what occurred. The letter stated: "This edition of Davidson A.M. includes a story about former Titans quarterback Steve McNair.

"The story, including an interview with Mr. McNair, was prepared before his death last Saturday. This edition of Davidson A.M. was printed last Friday. It is common practice for newspapers to print some feature sections several days before their distribution.

"We apologize for the timing of the story."

Faricy said the key element of the decision involved the ad inserts that had to be distributed and the timing involved in repackaging. He declined to say how much money it would have cost the paper to repackage and distribute the non-subscriber copies. "We made the decision that that did not seem feasible," he added. "We have only gotten feedback from one customer, but we will probably hear more today."