Sharing Stories for Good – Breaking News Reporter Brinley Hineman Writes to Create Change

Photo Credit: Henrietta Wildsmith, USA Today

When breaking news reporter Brinley Hineman chose to become a journalist, she had no idea she would be changing lives. 

At the age of 25, Hineman stands with her back to the rocky shore of Lake Charles as 60 mph winds gust along the Louisiana coast. Wearing only a North Face jacket, she braces against Hurricane Delta’s scattered precipitation, with her blue hood clinging to her tossed auburn hair. Her dark eyes and pale, freckled face, tip upward, watching the grey clouds churn above the lake’s quiet currents. A photojournalist snaps the image. 

Hineman, a breaking news reporter for The Tennessean, is on-location in the town of Lake Charles covering damage caused by recurring tropical storms to the homes of displaced locals on the Gulf Coast. She weaves in between debris on the abandoned streets, looking for residents willing to share their story. Finally, she encounters Howard Wallace, 32, as he rummages through broken piles of his belongings. Hineman and her colleague, photographer Henrietta Wildsmith, 46, follow Wallace into the shambled structure that was once his home.  

“For Wallace to still give us a tour of his heartbreak is a heavy thing and it’s not something I take lightly,” said Hineman on a Zoom call from the balcony of her East Nashville apartment. She takes a moment to herself in the mid-morning sun while her boyfriend and fellow reporter Erik Bacharach, 28, works inside with their scruffy, black-and-white mutt, Abbie. Both Hineman and Bacharach work for Nashville’s regional paper, where Hineman landed with a promotion in 2020.

Only five months after joining The Tennessean’s staff, Hineman was assigned to board a plane, mid-pandemic, with tactical rain gear in tow as she prepared to cover her first hurricane. Despite taking on the “nerve-wracking” assignment, Hineman said this was not her first experience covering events, or tragedies, that leave a lasting impact on her sources’ lives. 

One story that still stands out in Hineman’s memory is the federal court case of Dr. Richard Schott, a fraudulent dentist, and his ill-treated patient, Vessie Moore. 

Schott was charged with healthcare fraud after diverting nearly $1 million from insurance companies and performing incorrect dental work on patients. Hineman wrote at least nine stories about the court case, sharing malpractice stories of Schott’s victims and providing an inside look at Schott’s personal life and dental practice. 

“(The news) rocked Murfreesboro,” emphasized Hineman, squinting past a sun glare into her webcam. “Schott was very well known and very respected...it was a total shock to a lot of people.” 

Intrigued by the community’s controversial reaction to the news, Hineman said she wanted to dig deeper. Through her investigation, she collected interviews from Schott’s employees about the lack of training they received and the “shoddy” or “pretend” work they were instructed to perform on patients- one of those patients being Moore. 

“(Moore) was an elderly Black woman living in public housing, and she needed her teeth repaired,” Hineman explained. “She went to Dr. Schott… and he did install the teeth implants for her, but he did it incorrectly and they got tangled in her nerves.” 

Complications from the procedure caused Moore severe oral pain and resulted in follow-up medical bills to the emergency room, Hineman said. Even so, Moore still owed $13,000 to $14,000 to Schott’s dental practice after the botched procedure. 

Hineman’s story about Moore was published in USA Today and caught the attention of a dental implant manufacturer. Hineman said the company reached out to her directly and coordinated with another local dentist to fix Moore’s smile free-of-charge. 

“I remember (Moore) texted me afterwards and she said that she felt alive again,” Hineman recollected with a smile of her own. “It was a bittersweet thing that broke my heart. It was horrible that she had to go through that, but it was also incredible to see people come together.” 

The dentist, Schott, would be sentenced to 33 months in prison after pleading guilty, and Hineman would win the Malcolm Law Award for Investigative Reporting for her coverage of his trial. 

“She’s really passionate about the topics she covers,” said Hineman’s boyfriend, Bacharach, who said that Hineman often sends her articles to him to edit. “You can tell how much she pours herself into the stories that she does.” 

For Hineman, becoming a reporter just "clicked" in college. Jumping into reporting opportunities, she climbed from editor of Middle Tennessee State University’s student newspaper to a 12-week internship with the Associated Press in Atlanta. Before breaking into her professional journalism career, however, she contributed to a publication called The Contributor, which supports Nashville’s homeless community. 

“I think that was a turning point for me,” Hineman said. “I realized that this was journalism for good, and it was directly helping people in need.” 

Now, she employs her passion for storytelling as a breaking news reporter in “Music City.” In one year, Hineman covered tornados that ripped through downtown, extensively reported on criminal justice issues and Black Lives Matter protests, and stood on-scene at a downtown bombing on Christmas day. No matter what topic she's covering, Hineman says her focus is on the people whose lives are being changed by the story she tells. 

“She covered the damage following the tornado outbreak here in Nashville despite the fact that she was personally affected by it,” said fellow reporter Joe Spears, 26, of the Daily News Journal. She was pretty shaken up by the whole ordeal but still did her job and provided coverage throughout the day that proved to be pivotal.” 

Spears and Hineman also worked alongside each other covering protests related to the death of George Floyd. He said one of Hineman’s advantages as a reporter is that she manages to stay calm under pressure. 

“Sometimes people are so willing to talk and that’s the easy part...but I think with breaking news specifically the hardest thing is you need to be willing to pivot at any moment, and sometimes you don’t get closure on stories,” Hineman said. 

And if any year forced Hineman to pivot, it was 2020. Unknowingly, she said the horror she lived through, and reported on, during Nashville’s tornado outbreak helped prepare her for what she later encountered among the hurricane ruble in Louisiana. 

“I was worried about my own reaction,” Hineman said. “If I had gotten there and seen dead animals or a really awful catastrophe… it would have been really heartbreaking to try to overcome the moment and keep working.” 

Sporting waterproof pants and an electric headlamp, Hineman did continue to work; sharing stories of the Gulf’s battered towns and exhausted Louisianans who continue to persevere despite violent storms that batter the coast each hurricane season. 

Wildsmith, the photojournalist assigned to cover Hurricane Delta with Hineman, posted to Facebook that she was “in awe over (Hineman’s) talent as well as who she is as a human being.” 

But, reporting on events that change the lives of her sources affects Hineman’s life as well. 

“She’s human just like anyone else,” said Bacharach. “At the end of the day it takes an emotional toll.” 

After a hard day at work, Bacharach said that he and Hineman take a moment to decompress, whether that’s by taking a drive or watching a movie together. As two reporters in a relationship, he said they both understand the lifestyle that their jobs demand. 

“I think it’s an organic thing that happens. You find it easy to relate to and become friends with people you’re in the trenches with,” he said. “I feel very lucky that I’m with her.” 

For Hineman, being a journalist is worth all of the unpredictable stress and the emotional burden she carries to share stories that matter.

“Every story I tell, I do get deeply invested in it,” admitted Hineman. “What I do now is hard, but I feel fulfilled most days compared to not. (Journalism) is something that I could do to empower others and it feels like a really special role to have.”