The Tennessee Star – launched in 2017 – is the flagship news site of The Star News Network group of digital newspapers, which are owned by Star News Digital Media.
We feature articles reporting news, politics, and policy at the state level, primarily from Tennessee. We round out our daily coverage with national stories and thoughtful commentary of interest to our readers.
Senior Management TeamÂ
CEO & Editor-in-Chief
Michael Patrick Leahy
[email protected]
Executive Editor
Christina Botteri
[email protected]
The senior management team of Star News Digital Media are the majority shareholders of the company.
Michael Patrick Leahy is the CEO and Editor-in-chief of Star News Digital Media, which owns and operates a family of state focused conservative news sites, including The Tennessee Star, The Ohio Star, The Michigan Star, The Minnesota Sun, The Virginia Star, The Georgia Star News,  The Florida Capital Star, The Arizona Sun Times, The Wisconsin Daily Star, The Pennsylvania Daily Star, and The Connecticut Star, The Iowa Star, The New Hampshire Star, The South Carolina Sun, and The Star News Network.
He is also the host of The Tennessee Star Report, broadcast weekday mornings from 5 am to 8 am on 98.3 FM and 1510 WLAC in Nashville.
Leahy was the sole proprietor of The Tennessee Star website from its launch in February 2017 to August 2018, when it was acquired by Star News Digital Media, a company in which he is the majority shareholder.
He has been a Breitbart News contributor since 2012, and is the author of Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement, published by Harper Collins’ Broadside Books imprint in 2012, and co-author of The Star News Digital Media Guide to the Constitution and Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students, published in 2019.
He is the founder of the Star News Education Foundation and the creator of The Star News Education Foundation Constitution Bee program, which began with the 2017 Tennessee Star Constitution Bee. In 2020, the Bee was postponed until October over pandemic concerns. In 2021 and 2022, the National Constitution Bee was held the third Saturday in October in Brentwood, Tennessee, where students from across the country gathered to compete. The next National Constitution Bee will be held in April 2025.
An early innovator in social media, Leahy founded Top Conservatives on Twitter in 2008 and organized and hosted the February 20, 2009 conference call of a handful of activists, including Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots, Dana Loesch, and Star News Digital Media co-founder Christina Botteri that launched the Tea Party Movement one week later.
A native of upstate New York, he is a graduate of Harvard College, has an MBA from Stanford University, and has lived in the Nashville area since 1991.
Christina Botteri is the CTO and Executive Editor of Star News Digital Media, and co-founder of the Star News Education Foundation. She is the designer and developer of the Star News brands, websites, and books; and has more than two decades of experience working in communications, media and public relations, and social media for technology startups. She was active as an early organizer of the Tea Party movement in 2009 and 2010.
Staff
Lead Reporter
Tom Pappert
Follow on Twitter / X – @realTomPappert
Email – [email protected]
Digital Editor
Zachery Schmidt
For advertising inquiries, please email:Â [email protected]
LEADING THE WAY IN NEWS AND EDUCATION
95 White Bridge Road Suite 207 – Nashville, Tennessee 37205 –Â phone: 615-538-8526
The Star News Digital Media network includes
The Star News Network – thestarnewsnetwork.com
The Tennessee Star – tennesseestar.com
The Ohio Star – theohiostar.com
The Minnesota Sun –Â theminnesotasun.com
The Michigan Star – themichiganstar.com
The Virginia Star – thevirginiastar.com
The Georgia Star News – georgiastarnews.com
The Florida Capital Star – floridacapitalstar.com
The Arizona Sun Times – arizonasuntimes.com
The Wisconsin Daily Star – wisconsindailystar.com
The Pennsylvania Daily Star – pennsylvaniadailystar.com
The Connecticut Star – theconnecticutstar.com
The South Carolina Sun – thesouthcarolinasun.com
The Texas Lone Star – thetexaslonestar.com is coming soon
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The Tennessee Star is owned and operated by
Star News Digital Media, Inc.