Seigenthaler Gives Papers to Vanderbilt

By: E&P Staff John Seigenthaler has announced that he will donate his papers to Vanderbilt University Library's special collections department.

The papers contain letters, manuscripts and photographs spanning Seigenthaler's life, including from his 43 years at The Tennessean in Nashville, and his later tenure at USA Today. He will also donate materials from his recent work as chair of the panel that investigated former USA Today reporter Jack Kelley.

"I am honored and more than a little surprised that Vanderbilt University is interested in these papers," Seigenthaler said, in a press release. "If the documents can help explain the journalism, literature, government and politics of the last half-century, I will be doubly honored."

Seigenthaler, a native of Nashville, has been a strong advocate for the First Amendment . While he edited The Tennessean, it won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about corruption involving union and management in the coal industry.

The Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt currently houses the First Amendment Center, which he founded in 1991.