Pam Sohn is the Times opinion editor, representing the left-leaning side of the Chattanooga Times Free Press opinion pages. Sohn has been reporting or editing Chattanooga news for 30 years. A Walden's Ridge native, she began her journalism career with a 10-year stint at the Anniston (Ala.) Star. She came to the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 1999 after working at the Chattanooga Times for 14 years. She has also been a city editor, Sunday editor, wire editor, projects team leader and assistant lifestyle editor. As a reporter, she covered the police, courts, health, education and environment beats. She has won dozens of writing and editing awards in both Alabama and Tennessee, including first-place honors for breaking news, investigative news, public service, features, reporting without a deadline and editorial writing. During her tenure as Sunday editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the paper received the 2002 first-place honors for Best Sunday editions and Sweepstakes Award — Best Paper in the State. She has been married for 41 years to photographer, Louis Sohn. They have a grown son, Mitch, as well as three dogs and a grand cat. When not working, Pam gardens, researches family roots and plays piano. Contact her at psohn@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6346.
Martin Luther King would have turned 93 on Saturday had he not been killed by a sniper's bullet on April 23, 1968, as he stood on a motel balcony in Memphis.
by Pam SohnIt was a hot time on this old Earth — all year long in 2021. It was the fifth-hottest year on record and one of the seven hottest on record in the past seven years.
by Pam SohnMarsha, Marsha, Marsha! How can you be so ridiculous? And so blatantly partisan, racist and stunningly hypocritical?
by Pam SohnNo wonder many Republicans, and especially Tennessee and Georgia Republicans, are trying to talk about anything other than coronavirus and particularly its emerging variants.
by Pam SohnIt's bad enough that a segment of white Chattanooga worked for years to further disenfranchise - even run out - knowingly or unknowingly - thousands of Black families from our city.
by Pam SohnSomething's not right about the Hamilton County Board of Education. Maybe a lot is not right about our school board.
by Pam SohnWe say this often because it's true: All politics are local.
by Pam SohnJan. 6 has become a day so tragic that it - like 9/11 and the Dec. 7 - will remain both known and infamous simply by date alone.
by Pam SohnPoor Marjorie Taylor Greene.
by Pam SohnIt wasn't enough that Tennessee's right-wing and wrongheaded leadership tried at every turn to handicap practical preventions for COVID-19, the increasingly insidious virus that even in the brief periods when it has waned has changed our lives.
by Pam SohnThis is the time of year when everyone begins looking for a crystal ball. Or a Ouija board. Or both.
by Pam SohnWe had hopes of waxing happy about a new year beginning brightly for us on Jan. 1, 2022.
by Pam SohnWe all need help sometimes. Because life is good at throwing curveballs. Especially this year and last.
by Pam SohnIt is Christmas 2021, and it feels different this year.
by Pam SohnIn good and bad ways, this has been a catch-up week in our region, with some things long ignored at last being resolved, or at least refocused. Meanwhile, one other thing — COVID-19 — has roared back to remind us we've not made anything like enough progress on the practical preventions we've known we needed but continued to ignore.
by Pam SohnAcross Hamilton County, home to 374,826 residents, just over half of us - 53% - have received full vaccinations against COVID-19.
by Pam SohnGot some last minute gift-giving to attend to?
by Pam SohnAfter unemployment in Tennessee jumped to a record high 15.8% in April 2020, the jobless rate in Tennessee fell last month to 4% - the lowest since March 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the economy.
by Pam SohnOmicron is here. Omicron is the new and still mystery-shrouded variant of concern in the ever-evolving coronavirus.
by Pam SohnWas it just another tornado? Or is it climate change?
by Pam Sohn