Am I spreading "Fake News", or just Uncomfortable Truths?
What Would it Take to Rebuild Trust in One of Nashville's Most Complex Systems?
Last Wednesday, June 4th, the Director of Metro’s Office of Homeless Services (OHS) used her opening remarks at Nashville’s State of Homelessness Symposium to denounce “false narratives, fake news, and misleading facts.”
In a brief interaction with me, she confirmed that by this she meant my Substack from May 18 2025, entitled “Housing Last | The Rodeway to Nowhere”.
But Mayor O’Connell’s OHS Director also explained that she didn’t mean just me, other local reporting is, she argues, full of lies.
She didn’t name names. But since May 18, there’s been independent reporting on OHS’s closure of Old Tent City, including by Bill Freeman’s Nashville Scene, and a City Cast Nashville episode on the topic, which hosted Kennetha Patterson (chair of the Homelessness Planning Council’s Executive Committee) and me on its May 28 episode.
The Executive Producer of City Cast Nashville, Metro Human Relations Commissioner Whitney Pastorek, used Friday’s episode to respond to the allegations of being called “fake news.”
Pastorek: Our episode last week was extremely critical of Director Calvin and OHS, including reporting that was picked up and echoed by the Nashville scene this week. As I mentioned before, news stations like WKRN have included criticisms of OHS and their stories. Is she calling all of us fake news? As we've mentioned twice now, we did reach out to OHS for comment, clarification and response to the questions raised in our episode before we aired it.
And we have yet to hear back. I'll just reiterate that we are very, very open to their response. We welcome it because we want to present the complete story to all of you out there in radio land, but until they find time to send us a response, there's not a whole lot more we can do.
I, too, have yet to receive a response from OHS — not just to the piece itself, but to three Tennessee Public Records Requests I submitted through HUB Nashville, the earliest of which dates back to May 2. Metro is legally required to respond within seven days, per Tennessee Code Annotated § 10-7-503(a)(2)(B)(2024). It’s now been 37 days.
I’ve written and deleted about 6,000 words in response to the “fake news” claims made by the OHS Director, who was appointed to the position by former Mayor Cooper in May, 2023 and kept on by Mayor O’Connell.
It has been, I’ll admit, difficult to draft a response that is not motivated by personal offense that just aggressively reiterates my request for any form of substantial corrections if I am indeed so off base.
But I’d like to take some time to unpack a piece of feedback I was able to give the OHS Director on Wednesday.
I gave her my opinion that it is “dangerous for public officials to be using terms like ‘fake news.’” She in turn responded that it is dangerous for “people to publish things that are 75% lies.”
I will say, I don’t disagree that publishing things that are not true is indeed very dangerous.
But that also means that someone in her position has the responsibility of substantively correcting those untruths. So, again, I welcome any corrections.
But returning to the danger of using terms like “fake news”, I have two main points.
We are at an exceptionally precarious place in society where freedom of speech is being sacrificed at the altar of political allegiance, and political violence is on the rise.
Denouncing critics of one’s regime as operating exclusively from bad faith brings the most toxic divisiveness of our national politics to a local level, and erodes what faith in local institutions there still are. When speaking as a duly appointed Metro Official, the OHS Director is speaking on behalf of her direct supervisor, Mayor Freddie O’Connell, and Metro Government as a whole.
To be clear, I don’t think dismissing a Substack post from a former government employee is that big a deal. I don’t think I “deserve” to be taken seriously, and if I had been singled out and called out by name, I honestly would be far less concerned.
But dismissing local media institutions as “fake news”, including respected local journalists and a member of the Metro Human Relations Commission is a grievous form of self-harm that does not belong in our public discourse. We have enough people attacking the legitimacy and character of our institutions, we don’t need our well-compensated bureaucratic leaders adding fuel to the fire.
We don’t need our appointed leaders, in an effort to not engage with concerns that are grounded in well documented issues, using divisive rhetoric to maintain a façade of perfectionism that (a) no one believes is real, (b) no one is asking of them.We need leaders who are emotionally mature enough to welcome criticism and use it to make them better. But what we too often see, not just at OHS, is an assault on the messenger, and no engagement whatsoever with the content of the message.
A healthy, functioning complex system, like the ecosystem that serves our unhoused neighbors, requires feedback and criticism to be tolerated, integrated, and, in fact, encouraged.
Click here for articles supporting this idea.
There’s a way of operating institutions with a rigid hierarchy. Let’s call it “Vertical Compliance.”
Vertical Compliance believes that feedback should be kept in private and shared only behind closed doors, and that those who openly critique a system or its leadership are inherently dangerous and merely “have it out” for those in authority. These systems operate on allegiance and loyalty. These tend to work well in top-down command and control hierarchies. Religious institutions. Militaries. It’s the psychosocial software that our rules and laws are based in. But it is very resistant to change, and very prone to seeing criticism as a threat to its existence.
You can read more about this way of operating here, and how it has a purpose, but why it falls short in managing complex problems.
Vertical Compliance does not work when managing complex systems that need to be agile, resilient, and operate with high levels of earned trust. And that trust is earned through living the values that make these type of dynamic, complex systems flourish — and a huge part of that is being able to tolerate and accept feedback.
When a system is complex, things change a lot. Plans that worked under prior conditions may not work under current ones. And that can happen very quickly. That’s what feedback is, it is information about the current state of things that is necessary to alter the future actions of the system.
But if feedback is perceived as a threat to the natural order of things, the system cannot adapt. And this is very dangerous.
Dismissing criticism out of hand, and painting a rose-tinted view of everything, makes the system blind it its current conditions, and unable to change as it needs to. And what’s more, it weakens the exact values that are needed for a complex system like a Continuum of Care to thrive. And we need those values to be as alive as possible, especially in an era of unprecedented chaos.
I was recently asked what advice I had for rebuilding trust in the system we’ve been discussing.
Honestly, I’m not an expert on how Continuums of Care are meant to function, nor can I predict the direction of federal policy. But I do know this: building a system that genuinely welcomes and tolerates feedback will pay off. Everytime.
So here’s my advice to anyone aiming to create a system that is resilient, adaptable, and committed to both justice and effectiveness: start by defining a set of values that support those goals. Then, honor the tensions those values arise from.
That bears repeating. Values aren’t just “good things we want.” They aren’t straightforward guiding lights pulling us in one direction or another.
Values emerge from tensions—opposing forces that, at first glance, appear to be tearing us apart. But it’s precisely from these tensions that values are born. They bind conflicting impulses into something cohesive, something alive—molecules of meaning capable of shaping new worlds.
Bringing values to life doesn’t happen by neutralizing those tensions—by repressing them, as when genuine feedback is dismissed as “fake news.” Nor does it come from endlessly obsessing over what’s wrong, caught in an echo chamber of grievances.
We manifest our values by making space for the tensions that give rise to them.
We can’t resolve these tensions by picking one side over the other. We need both. And when we embrace that duality, the tension doesn’t vanish—it creates. It transforms. And suddenly, everything looks different.
Suppressing those tensions—hoarding them inside ourselves, refusing to trust the world’s innate wisdom to work them through—suffocates the greater organism we’re a part of. It makes the system sick. It causes it to stagnate. It dies.
This is why labeling observations like mine as “fake news” bothers me so deeply. It’s an attempt to block the very thing we need most: the friction that truth brings. We need that friction. We need it to break through, to become something more—something we can’t yet imagine.
So here’s my two cents: let’s stop pretending the tensions between us don’t exist.
Not because people “just need to vent” before things return to normal. Not because it’s “equitable” to let everyone have a turn. In fact, rigidly insisting on equal airtime can drown out the tensions that truly demand our attention.
What we need is the courage to speak the unimaginably hard truth. Because that’s how transformation happens.
A system that cannot evolve with its environment will die.
And I’m not willing to let this one die.
Not when I can see how close it is to becoming something unimaginably powerful. It doesn’t need to learn more respect for top down power. It needs to be able to accept the truth.
Seven Pillars of Integrative Systems
Consider this a template or jumping off point on identifying the values, and the tensions that underly them, which can create the type of systems we need.
1. Governing without Coercion
Order in complex systems can arise not through force, but through voluntary coordination, shared norms, and self-organizing feedback. Governance becomes a relational architecture where freedom and structure reinforce, rather than oppose, one another.
Underlying tensions:
{Will × Consent}, {Respect × Domination}, {Guidance × Autonomy}
2. Feedback, Grievance & Truth-Telling
Sustainable systems depend on metabolizing honest signals, even when uncomfortable. Truth-telling is not an interruption but a core function — a ritualized, safe process that integrates criticism into learning and cohesion.
Underlying tensions:
{Honesty × Concealment}, {Safety × Exposure}, {Integration × Marginalization}
3. Decision-Making Beyond Binaries
Wise action requires moving past rigid either/or choices. Instead of forcing premature closure, this theme emphasizes layered participation, reflective timing, and integrative outcomes that emerge iteratively.
Underlying tensions:
{Closure × Openness}, {Speed × Reflection}, {Participation × Delegation}
4. Contextual Leadership
Leadership is not a fixed trait, but an emergent relational dynamic that shifts with context. Systems flourish when influence flows where it is most needed — honoring both expertise and legitimacy across central and peripheral roles.
Underlying tensions:
{Stability × Adaptivity}, {Expertise × Legitimacy}, {Center × Periphery}
5. Ritual, Myth & Meaning
Beneath rational systems lie symbolic structures that bind identity, purpose, and coherence. Rituals and myths, when consciously shaped, offer adaptive storytelling and shared rhythms that help cultures evolve meaningfully.
Underlying tensions:
{Form × Essence}, {Past × Future}, {Unity × Difference}
6. Circulation of Power & Resources
Vital systems require flow. Instead of hoarding or chaos, this theme calls for dynamic, just circulation — where resources and authority move through networks in ways that regenerate capacity and reduce systemic fragility.
Underlying tensions:
{Scarcity × Abundance}, {Holding × Flowing}, {Accumulation × Redistribution}
7. Nested Stewardship
True care must operate across levels — from individual to planetary. Systems thrive when local structures align with global wellbeing, balancing resilience and interdependence through nested, multiscale responsibility.
Underlying tensions:
{Fragility × Fortification}, {Individual × Collective}, {Containment × Connection}