From news editor Daniel Silliman: The other day I had to interrupt someone I was interviewing on the phone. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Can you hold on a second?” I put him on mute and waited while my neighbor squeezed off five or six rounds in his front yard, firing at the target he has set up across the street from my home office.

Sometimes being a journalist in East Tennessee presents unique challenges.

The Columbia Journalism Review published a piece last week on the many journalists moving out of major metros and, as the title of the piece put it, “finding America” in places more like where I live. CT, which sold its headquarters outside Chicago this year, is part of this trend. 

I think it’s a good trend, but not because some parts of America are more real than others. It’s good because to really see a country or the church, you need to have a lot of different perspectives. You need to be in different places. You have to talk to different people.

I’m grateful, for example, that my colleague Emily Belz lives in New York City, where she can report on the pain caused by Christian colleges closing, but can also travel to Texas, Ohio, and Missouri to report on things happening there. 

And while I am momentarily put out by my neighbor’s home firing range, I once reported on the church he goes to, which I was only aware of because he’s my neighbor. It gives me a good perspective, living here.