Tennesee’s Wild Side Weekly Pro Staff

Alan Griggs

Alan Griggs is a senior manager of communications with diverse experience including television news reporting and management, political and corporate communications. In his role as a media consultant, Mr. Griggs’ clients include respected regional, national and international organizations.

A native of Newnan, Georgia, Mr. Griggs received his BA in Mass Communication from the University of Georgia. He holds an MA in Organizational Communication from Western Kentucky University. Mr. Griggs has served as an adjunct professor of communications at the University of Tennessee and Western Kentucky University, published academic research and business articles and has served as president of the University of Georgia journalism advisory board.

Mr. Griggs has an extensive background in broadcast news and marketing. He was a reporter and anchor at WAPI-TV in Birmingham, Alabama, before moving to WSM-TV, later WSMV-TV, in Nashville. Beginning as a reporter, he worked his way up to assistant news director, a position he held for nine of his 20 years at the NBC affiliate. During his tenure as news director, WSMV-TV was officially recognized as the winner of more awards than any station in the country. Managing a newsroom of 80 people with a budget in excess of four million dollars, Mr. Griggs oversaw a news operation that consistently ranked number one in the nation’s 30th largest television market. His television career also included a stay at WBZ-TV in Boston, where he was an investigative reporter and manager of its investigative unit.

Individually, Mr. Griggs has received most of broadcast journalism’s top awards including three Peabody awards (the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), a Dupont-Columbia citation for a documentary on the Ku Klux Klan, two National Headliner awards, the George Polk award, the Edward R. Murrow award for broadcast excellence, several Emmys and the Robert F. Kennedy award for a year-long effort on race relations.

In 1994, Mr. Griggs moved from asking important questions to answering them by becoming the communications director of a U.S. Senate campaign. He later became a marketing director for Film House, Incorporated, handling strategic positioning and marketing for television stations around the country. In July, 1995, Mr. Griggs was named Director of Media Strategy for United Methodist Communications, an agency of the worldwide United Methodist Church. His responsibilities included working with national and local media, conducting media training for church officials, coordinating crisis seminars, handling crisis situations, co-producing television commercials for the denomination and assisting in the development of a national media campaign for the church.

Mr. Griggs is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Public Relations Society of America. His wife, Sandra, is a native of Jasper, Alabama. They are the parents of one daughter, Elizabeth, and two sons, Lee and William.

Read about Alan’s stories for Tennessee’s Wild Side on public television...