Why is the city name "NASHVILLE" not shown alone in news bylines? (why is identification of state of Tennessee needed?)

[alaskaflyer]

Originally Posted by JMT

You said Memphis is larger in population than Nashville, not Shelby County is larger in population than Davidson County. But since you want to go there:

Shelby County: 785 square miles (or 1,181 per square mile using 2010 numbers, 1,194 using 2019 numbers)

Davidson County: 526 square miles (or 1,191 per square mile using 2010 numbers, 1,326 using 2019 numbers)

Memphis Combined Statistical Area a little over 1.3 million.

Nashville CSA, over 2 million.

I've lived in both back in the day, and now I occasionally visit both for family reasons. Memphis is still a great place (with warts too) but the Nashville area now feels much bigger.

[The QC]

In 1953, the ATL metro population was under 1 million. So it was not well known, I don’t think. I wonder if the list has already been updated periodically. I know that in most national news the GA was not dropped consistently from ATL until around the year 2000. Plus I believe that cities in the South are not recognized by the big city media in NYC, LA, or Chicago since we are far away. For example, NYC media may be more willing to drop the NY from Buffalo but keep the TN with Nashville. But Nashville is clearly much more populous than Buffalo. But I think as Nashville and Charlotte cross 3.5 million to 4 million in MSA population then the city name will stand alone. ATL crossed 4 million threshold in 2000 census.

[Beretta]

The OP hasn’t been back on the forum since posting this thread. We could ask the AP but I am not sure I have seen what the OP mentions. I need to look.

[Highpointer]

Originally Posted by Beretta

The OP hasn’t been back on the forum since posting this thread. We could ask the AP but I am not sure I have seen what the OP mentions. I need to look.

Reading most of articles about the recent tragic event that occurred in Nashville, most news articles state "Nashville, Tennessee" instead of just stating Nashville without "Tennessee", as in this example:

Trans Day of Vengeance Has Been Cancelled

However, I would assume by now that almost everyone knows that Nashville is in Tennessee. It is the capital of the state, which makes it even more important, and it is prominent as one of the leading cities for entertainment. If, for example, such an event had occurred in cities like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, or Milwaukee - all cities that Nashville has surpassed in population - you would likely not see "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," "Cincinnati, Ohio," St. Louis, Missouri," "Milwaukee, Wisconsin," etc. in the news articles.

[LivingLikeAGradStudent]

Each year The Associated Press addresses such issues -- whether a city is a standalone dateline, without the state. Within a state, many news organizations do without the more general state designation.