NewsChannel 5 honored with coveted Peabody Award for Gabrielle Hanson investigation

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — NewsChannel 5 has been honored with a highly coveted George Foster Peabody Award for an investigation that exposed mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson's white supremacist ties and other questions about her background during last fall's city elections in Franklin, Tennessee.

The entry, titled "Hate Comes to Main Street," was one of just two Peabodys awarded to local television stations.

"Gabrielle Hanson seemed like a candidate made for the MAGA moment," the Peabody judges wrote.

"In Franklin, Tennessee, an affluent suburb of Nashville, mediagenic alderwoman Gabrielle Hanson entered the 2023 mayor’s race against a popular Republican incumbent, running on a far-right platform of Christian nationalism and opposition to LGBTQ rights.

"But when investigative reporter Phil Williams of WTVF-NewsChannel 5 started following Hanson’s campaign, he uncovered a trail of hypocrisy and deceit, full of doctored social media posts, a job running a prostitution service under a different name, lies to police, and carpetbagging."

The Peabody citation concludes, "For exposing one candidate’s shamelessness and showing the invaluable role of local TV reporting in holding politicians to account, Hate Comes to Main Street wins a Peabody Award."

Chosen each year by a diverse board of jurors through unanimous vote, Peabody Awards are given in the categories of entertainment, documentary, news, podcast/radio, arts, children’s and youth and public service programming.

The annual Peabody winners are a collection of stories that “powerfully reflect the pressing social issues and the vibrant emerging voices of our day.”

It is Williams' fourth Peabody Award, the third for NewsChannel 5.

Related videos, stories: Hate Comes to Main Street

In addition to Williams, the project was also the work of photojournalist Bryan Staples and producer Kevin Wisniewski, along with photojournalist Bob Stinnett.

Also assisting in the project were photojournalists Don Blommel, Devin Crawford, James Garbee and Catherine Steward. Digital producer Emily West contributed to the reporting.

Assistant news director Michelle Bonnett supervised the project, along with news director Sandy Boonstra. Richard Eller is station manager. Lyn Plantinga is general manager.

James Garbee/WTVF

Devin Crawford/WTVF

“The NewsChannel 5 Investigates team, led by the determined Phil Williams, perfectly demonstrates what journalism can do for a local community,” Plantinga said.

“Our team asked hard questions of public officials on behalf of local voters, giving them critical information that likely would have remained uncovered.”

The president of news for NewsChannel 5's parent company, E.W. Scripps, agreed.

“The Nashville team’s persistent local reporting is an example of true watchdog journalism, and Scripps is proud of their commitment to bringing truth to light,” Kate O’Brian said.

In a series of more than 20 reports, Williams and the NewsChannel 5 Investigates team made the following discoveries:

• Gabrielle Hanson lifted social media images of a diverse group of people to falsely claim on social media that those images reflected support for her campaign. Using AI search tools, Williams tracked down some of the women in one of the photos, who said that they did not know Hanson and did not support her race for mayor. 
• Hanson, who was running for mayor on a pro-morality campaign, had been arrested and convicted for promoting prostitution in Dallas in the mid-90s. As NewsChannel 5 prepared to air its report, Hanson released a video claiming that she had been an unwitting call taker in a high-end prostitution ring. Those claims were put into doubt by evidence that she had been known in Dallas under an alias (Julie Newhouse/Neuhaus).
• During a subsequent court proceeding, the candidate for mayor denied under oath that she had ever used an alias, but NewsChannel 5 uncovered documents from Florida that directly linked her to an application to operate in a fictitious business name, J. Neuhaus and Associates.
• While Gabrielle Hanson told voters that she and her husband lived in Franklin, Tennessee, NewsChannel 5 discovered that, in Chicago, they had also claimed to live there as Tommy Hanson repeatedly ran for Congress.
• Despite Hanson’s vigorous efforts to block Pride events in Franklin, NewsChannel 5 uncovered a photo of Tommy Hanson wearing nothing but an American flag Speedo at a Pride parade in Chicago as he campaigned for Congress. A newspaper story at the time quoted him as saying he participated in the event at the encouragement of his wife.
• Gabrielle Hanson had claimed to have warned a local police officer about a premonition before Nashville’s deadly Covenant School shooting. But Williams obtained the officer’s bodycam video, which proved that her bizarre claims were false.
• When a group of suspicious characters showed up at a candidates forum allegedly to provide security for Hanson, Williams approached them and quickly identified them as white supremacists and “literal Nazis.” Williams immediately confronted Hanson about her ties to the hate group.
• Williams directly connected Hanson’s campaign to efforts by the white supremacists and neo-Nazis to intimidate local residents who opposed the controversial candidate.
• Video from a tent revival in a local parklinked Hanson to the Christian nationalist movement now sweeping parts of the country.
• One of Hanson’s allies, Jeff Feldman, claimed an impressive professional biography that fell apart under questioning by Williams.
• Jeff Feldman initially denied making controversial social media posts threatening to use guns on local teens, but he inadvertently admitted while being interviewed that the posts were indeed his.

During the investigation, Hanson supporters tried to physically prevent a NewsChannel 5 crew from attending a candidate forum, forcing local police to intervene.

Phil Williams/WTVF

After NewsChannel 5 exposed the involvement of the hate groups in Hanson’s campaign, those groups posted threats online against Williams and others in the community.

As a result of NewsChannel 5’s reporting, an influential conservative group withdrew its endorsements of Hanson and Feldman during the closing days of the campaign.

Election officials reported a record voter turnout, ending with Hanson being defeated by a 4-1 margin. Feldman lost by a nearly 3-1 spread.

The investigation received national attention, including from HBO's John Oliver on his show Last Week Tonight.

Williams, who has worked for NewsChannel 5 for more than 25 years, was recently recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Radio and Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) for his ongoing work to expose corruption in Tennessee government and politics. Williams was also the 2023 recipient of the prestigious John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism and is the only TV journalist to ever receive a coveted Toner Prize for political reporting.

This year’s Peabody winners will be celebrated at a ceremony at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles on Sunday, June 9.