Christopher Blank
News DirectorA native "Florida Man," Christopher started in this business as a copy clerk at the renowned St. Petersburg Times before persuading editors to let him write. He moved to Memphis in 2001 to cover arts and entertainment at the Commercial Appeal. Since then, he has contributed to nearly every publication in Shelby County, writing features on everything from the Civil War to Civil Rights. Also, Elvis... a lot of Elvis.
He has won numerous awards for both print and radio reporting, including a 2017 Green Eyeshade Award for Public Service Journalism.
In 2020, he was named Senior Producer at the University of Memphis' Institute for Public Service Reporting.
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On Thursday, President Joe Biden signed a new federal holiday into law -- Juneteenth -- a day that commemorates the end of chattel slavery in America.… -
Harris M. Lentz, III started writing celebrity obituaries in the 1970s for a column in a movie fanzine, but it became something of a pasttime in 1993 when…
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Tennessee may be a deep red state, but its two biggest urban areas have large concentrations of Democrats. It's why voters in two of the state's nine…
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Republican lawmakers may have a supermajority in the Tennessee General Assembly, but their attempts to impose right-wing ideology on left-wing counties…
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A year has passed since a Minneapolis police officer killed a black man by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes in view of bystanders who were…
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Last summer, Shelby County's District Attorney Amy Weirich assigned a team of five prosecutors to start looking into the excessive force complaints…
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Ever since the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Republican-led states have been fast-tracking anti-abortion laws designed to overturn…
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According to the Report Card for America's Infrastructure, 4.4 percent of Tennessee's bridges are structurally deficient. One of those bridges -- as was…
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The Tennessee General Assembly wrapped up a session this week in which lawmakers passed a number of bills designed to consolidate Republican power in…
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Cerelyn “CJ” Davis was confirmed Tuesday afternoon as Memphis’s new chief of police. The City Council’s 12-1 vote makes this the first time a woman has…
