I’m thrilled to join The Tennessean to cover the ins and outs of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.
Though I joined the team in early December, I’ve lived in Nashville now for about six months. That’s given me some critical time to find my way around what I’ve quickly learned is a vibrant and rapidly growing city.
Prior stops on my career have been near my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri — first as the editor of a rural Missouri weekly and, most recently, as the city reporter for the Lawrence Journal-World in Lawrence, Kansas.
Austin Hornbostel, city reporter at The Tennessean in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024.
I’m incredibly passionate about the work I do and how it intersects with civic engagement and local government, so much so that I’ve volunteered each summer for well over a decade teaching rising high school seniors throughout Missouri about just that.
I’ve covered local government everywhere I’ve worked, on top of a wide variety of other topics. Those have included chronicling how rural Mid-Missouri navigated the beginnings and height of the COVID-19 pandemic and digging into rampant transparency issues at Haskell Indian Nations University, a federally managed college for Indigenous students located in Lawrence.
I’ve been proudest of stories like that, which have gotten me outside the walls of a city council meeting room and resulted in real change. My reporting on Haskell, for example, was cited in a lawsuit that eventually forced the release of a long-secret investigation into misconduct on campus. By last summer, that investigation — and my reporting — was the subject of special hearings in Washington.
I also, through open records requests, helped bring conversations about who would manage a new behavioral health crisis center in Lawrence from out of the shadows and into the public eye.
It’s that kind of work that I’m most eager to continue here with The Tennessean. I’ve been especially fortunate to have come on board while we’ve been compiling our top storylines to watch in 2025. Now, I can look forward to covering topics like what changes Nashvillians might see in their local property tax bills and the rollout of our new transit referendum.
I’ll be at every Metro Nashville Council meeting from here on out, but I see my role as much more than just sharing meeting highlights.
I’m here to listen to you, too, and to find answers to the questions you’re curious about. If you have a story idea to share about how local government affects you, I want to hear it. You can reach me at ahornbostel@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Meet Austin Hornbostel, the Tennessean’s new city reporter