NashvillePost.com has an post (subscription not necessary) today that includes a reprint of an interview with journalist and author David Halberstam in which he recalls his four years at the Nashville Tennessean, from 1956-1960. Halberstam, 73, died in a California car crash yesterday.

Quote:

“The newspaper boasted a proud tradition as an aggressive, combative, fearless voice of the people, a public trust. Compared to Mississippi, which was a de facto police state, Nashville was a nice, livable little city — the state capital, a university town, a pretty literate place, where you could say what you wanted (if you didn’t mind being unpopular in some quarters). The atmosphere had not congealed in fear, as had happened farther south. And best of all, the newspaper was right in the thick of every fight, and I was like the proverbial kid in the candy store, just devouring everything I could get my hands on.”

Also, today in the Tennessean, John Seigenthaler and others recall Halberstam’s days at the paper and in Nashville.