Holly McCall, Editor in Chief, Tennessee Lookout

Holly McCall is editor-in-chief of the Tennessee Lookout, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet dedicated to covering Tennessee state government, politics and policy. She has been a fixture in Tennessee media and politics for decades. Prior to her role with the Lookout, McCall covered city halls in Missouri and Ohio and edited The Contributor, a publication focusing on social justice issues and sold by members of Nashville’s homeless community. She has written for the Nashville Scene and the Nashville Post, covering technology for the latter.

Her lifelong interest in politics was spurred by her mother, Patricia McCall, who served six terms as a member of the Franklin (Tenn.) Special Schools District Board in the  1970s and 1980s, and McCall took her first political job as a Tennessee legislative page in 1980. She has served in communications roles for, among others, the presidential primary campaigns of Hillary Clinton (2016) and Michael Bloomberg (2020) and in the administration of Nashville Mayor Karl Dean. She has served as Chair of Emerge Tennessee, the premier organization for training and recruiting Democratic women to run for office and on the board of Women in Numbers (WIN), a nonpartisan organization dedicated to women in public office. She is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. The Tennessee Press Association awarded her a second place finish in 2023 for best single editorial and she has been named Best Columnist in the Nashville Scene’s Best of Nashville for 2021, 2022 and 2023. The Nashville Post named her to its “In Charge” list in 2023 and 2024.

McCall serves as a political analyst for Fox 17 in Nashville and regularly lectures across  Tennessee on the role of watchdog journalism in educating the public about state policies affecting their everyday life.  She studied political science and journalism at the University of Tennessee and has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. McCall, her husband, Tom Bitto, and three dogs live in Franklin, Tenn. as the fourth generation in the house her great-grandfather bought in1890.

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