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Meribah Knight

Meribah Knight, Senior Reporter/Producer of Special Projects

Meribah Knight is a senior reporter and producer at Nashville Public Radio. She’s the host and creator of the Peabody Award-winning podcast, The Promise as well as Serial’s recent podcast The Kids of Rutherford County.

Her reporting on race and inequality in public schools prompted a wholesale shift in enrollment and attitudes toward school choice in one Nashville neighborhood. And her reporting on the juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, Tenn., led to the retirement of its juvenile judge and new oversight of its juvenile detention center.

Knight has received numerous national awards for her reporting, including the George Foster Peabody Award and the George Polk Award. Knight was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the Goldsmith Award, and twice a finalist for a National Magazine Award. Knight received her master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

A Covenant mom reflects on election ‘déjà vu’

Meribah Knight

December 30, 2024

In the wake of the presidential election, the dynamics at the Tennessee State Capitol captured in the “Supermajority” podcast have taken on new meaning. “I don’t know where I belong,” says Melissa Alexander, “and I think a lot of America, maybe, feels the same way.”   

Filed Under: Politics, WPLN News Tagged With: 2024 Year in Review, Covenant School, Melissa Alexander, supermajority

Trump supporters in Tennessee ‘tickled’ over decisive victory

Meribah Knight

November 9, 2024

Jerry Reynolds had been feeling under the weather. The flu, maybe COVID. He wasn’t quite sure. But when Donald Trump won, it was just what his body needed. “It was kind of like a shot of medicine in the arm,” he said.

Filed Under: Politics, WPLN News Tagged With: Donald Trump, Robertson County

Emotional first-time voters — one age 18, the other 65 — cast ballots in Hermitage

Meribah Knight

November 5, 2024

Arian Mireles, 18, bounced out of the Hermitage Library with a smile on his face after voting for the first time. “I am really hoping I can make a change in America,” he said. The Lipscomb University student initially struggled to decide who would get his first vote. “I had to talk to my parents […]

Filed Under: Election in Depth 2024, Election Live Blog 2024, Politics Tagged With: Elections 2024, voting

Podcast bonus: 11 children are arrested and Murfreesboro’s new police chief asks ‘What did I step into?’

Meribah Knight

November 9, 2023

Listen

Less than two weeks after he started, while he was still furnishing his office and learning people’s names, officers from his department arrested 11 Black school children for not stepping in to stop a fight.

Filed Under: WPLN News

Podcast Bonus: Treated ‘like I’m a dog,’ says one man jailed as a child by Rutherford County

Meribah Knight

November 2, 2023

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Quinterrius Frazier was 15 years old when he was arrested for aggravated robbery and held in the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center. When staff said he was being disruptive — flashing gang signs and rapping, they claimed — he was placed in solitary confinement.

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, WPLN News Tagged With: criminal justice, podcasts, Rutherford County juvenile justice, The Kids of Rutherford County

The Kids of Rutherford County: A reporter’s essay

Meribah Knight

October 26, 2023

The three years I spent working on “The Kids of Rutherford County” podcast taught me one thing: Tennessee’s punitive policies aren’t leaving children in the legal system better off.

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, WPLN News Tagged With: Rutherford County, Rutherford County juvenile justice, The Kids of Rutherford County

Hear the trailer: ‘The Kids of Rutherford County,’ a new podcast series from Serial, ProPublica and WPLN News

Meribah Knight

October 19, 2023

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In partnership with Serial Productions and The New York Times, “The Kids of Rutherford County” is a four-part narrative series reported and hosted by WPLN’s Meribah Knight.

Filed Under: WPLN News

‘Nibble at the edges’: One Republican lawmaker contemplates his role as special session kicks off

Meribah Knight

August 17, 2023

When Republican state Sen. Richard Briggs, R-Knoxville, first read Gov. Bill Lee’s extreme risk protection order he thought: This seems reasonable.

Filed Under: Politics, Special Session 2023, Special Session 2023 In Depth, WPLN News Tagged With: extreme risk protective order, gun bills, guns, Richard Briggs, special session, Tennessee Firearms Association

Rutherford County is back in court over juvenile arrests, now fighting insurer to cover its payouts

Meribah Knight

December 1, 2022

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Rutherford County is suing its insurance provider for refusing to cover its settlement in a large class action lawsuit over its unlawful policies for arresting and detaining children.

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, WPLN News Tagged With: juvenile justice, Rutherford County, Rutherford County juvenile justice

Rutherford County detention center that illegally jailed kids will now answer to an oversight board

Meribah KnightandKen Armstrong, Propublica

June 8, 2022

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A juvenile detention center in Rutherford County, Tennessee, that for years illegally jailed children will now be overseen by a five-member board rather than the county’s juvenile court judge, a change designed to bring greater accountability to a long-troubled system.

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, Race & Equity, WPLN News Tagged With: juvenile detention, ProPublica, Rutherford County, Rutherford County juvenile justice

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