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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Bonus: Can you guess which Tennessee county is predominantly Black? 🤬

Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The cherry on top here is McClatchy's job page having 3 whole listings in the News category, and two of them are for "Influencers"

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Freak thunderstorm blew through Memphis earlier this evening and knocked out power to huge swaths of the city.... 120,000 people are still without power (including me) Here's what our utility company's outage map looks like rn 🙃

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

May we all be as resilient as this volunteer cherry tomato plant growing out of a literal crack in the pavement 3 feet above sidewalk level

A cherry tomato plant grows sideways out of a crack in the pavement next to a metal door beside a short set of stairs leading down to the sidewalk. The plant has at least 10 ripe cherry tomatoes on it and many more flowers.

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Since H.R. 1, nearly 100,000 Tennesseeans have lost their SNAP benefits. That's over 14% of recipients. I've witnessed folks waiting in their cars at Memphis' free community fridges to grab whatever gets dropped off. People are hungry and out of options. Map/data: www.cbpp.org/research/foo...

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

At least two people were shot today at OUTMemphis, my city's main LGBTQ+ nonprofit and resource center. The center, currently behind a police barricade, is 2 blocks from my apartment. I helped build the raised garden beds in its back yard. How can news be anything but personal? Visceral?

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Trying again with a new photo... I was on the scene at xAI's Colossus 1 plant on Friday, where activists staged a protest to call attention to the air pollution and other impacts of the facility on southwest Memphis. I heard from them directly about why this fight matters: mlk50.com/2026/05/05/t...

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

The lead image for this piece is getting incorrectly flagged as graphic-- it just depicts protestors lying on the ground. Here's another beautiful photo from the protest taken by my colleague Andrea Morales:

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

I'm at the XAI Colossus plant with @mlk50.com covering a die-in protest by local activists opposing the air pollution produced by the facility. Y'all know the drill: other outlets will have their stories out quicker, but ours will include perspectives no one else captures.

Seven people in matching tee shirts lie on the ground blocking the driveway leading into XAI's Colossus supercomputer facility near Memphis' Boxtown neighborhood.

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Also this photo by @scottanger.bsky.social should have been the lead image on this piece, I can't think of a more striking visual showing the impact of glyphosate:

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Make that two sitting City Councilmembers

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Having a super normal time here in Memphis, where a sitting City Councilmember is posting about how the snow on the ground is actually made of plastic... www.facebook.com/share/r/16kc...

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

As a journalist, it's best practice not to share my opinions when they may come across as political. So instead I'm going to share this:

A screenshot from the Poetry Foundation website of the short poem Obligations 2 by Layli Long Soldier. The word pairs are arranged in a lattice-like pattern that invites the reader to either read all of them in order or choose one phrase from each line:
As we
embrace / resist
the future / the present / the past
we work / we struggle / we begin / we fail
to understand / to find / to unbraid / to accept / to question
the grief / the grief / the grief / the grief
we shift / we wield / we bury
into light / as ash
across our faces

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Double rainbow spotted in Memphis 🥰

A bright rainbow with a faint second rainbow above it shines over a parking lot on a background of gray clouds

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

offering a reward to anyone who can tell me what "Minneapolis Sound" is

A cropped Spotify Wrapped top genres page showing that my too genres for 2025 were 1. Bedroom Pop, 2. Minneapolis Sound and 3. Indie Rock

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Something to keep in mind as you hear narratives about Memphis being a "crime-ridden," "dangerous" city requiring a National Guard crackdown is that BY FAR its most commonly recorded crime is shoplifting. This is according to the city & police dept's own data. app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrI...

A horizontal bar graph of crimes in Memphis as of 10/13/25 shows that the top category by a good margin is shoplifting, with 7,110 instances recorded so far this year. The next highest category, Motor Vehicle Theft, has just over 5,000 instances, with all other types of crime below 5,000.

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

A group of supporters of Tyre Nichols' family are marching through downtown Memphis currently on South Main

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Natalie Wallington @narwhallington.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

For my fellow government nerds: this graphic didn't make it into my story, but here's a simplified version of how USDA food aid distribution is supposed to work. Recently, officials have frozen half of 🟦 TEFAP's budget and eliminated the 🟥 LFPA entirely.

A colorful flowchart shows USDA money from a group called the CCC flowing to two major programs: TEFAP and the LFPA. TEFAP uses the money to buy bulk grocery staples, which then travel for free through the state department of agriculture, regional food bank, and down to local food programs. The LFPA, on the other hand, uses its money to reimburse regional food banks when they buy fresh food from local farmers. Other sources of food and money for local food programs include community partners like restaurants and grocery stores, and donations from the public.

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