Nashville Arts Magazine

Demetria | Tells It Like It Is

There’s probably not a single person in Nashville who doesn’t know her. They invite her into their homes every evening, keep her busy MC’ing events, and rely on her to tell it like it is—good or bad. She is so well known, in fact, that one need only say her first name, although her last name is just as distinctive. And believe it or not, children are named after her. That’s how loved she is in this town.

Demetria Kalodimos is most famous for her big brown eyes, beautiful smile and the smooth tenor voice that delivers the news for Channel 4. She has won numerous prestigious national awards for journalistic excellence, but for nearly 25 years she has also been working behind the camera to provide an artistic voice, to tell incredible stories that matter, and promote art in its many faces in Middle Tennessee. To visit her home is to revel in sculpture, religious imagery, modern art, retro furnishings, and an instrument collection. To view her films is to celebrate relentless curiosity that uncovers notorious characters and unique stories.

Q. Is there anything that people would be surprised to find out about you?

DK: I think people are surprised when they see me at Home Depot just like anyone else, hauling my own stuff around. Just a normal person that definitely gets their hands dirty. And I think it’s probably surprising that I love classic cars. I have a 1956 Corvette (convertible with black exterior, red leather interior) and a 1972 Olds Cutlass convertible. I grew up in a car culture; my Dad was a car racer and mechanic extraordinaire. I have a long list of cars I’d love to have someday. So maybe that’s one of the most surprising things, that I’m a gear head in some ways.

Q: What changes have you seen in the arts in Nashville since you’ve been here, and which changes would you like to see?

DK: All changes for the good. I mean, how cool is that to step off of an airplane and hear acoustic music, like bluegrass or jazz? I think it gets you primed for having a great time in Nashville. Ditto with the arts in the airport. The Frist has been

incredible, the fact that the building has been preserved and recognized for the piece of art that it is. I love the outdoor sculpture movement, from Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley and Musica to the Athena. I even love Ghost Ballet. The Nashville Film Festival—I can’t be a big enough cheerleader for that—one of the oldest film festivals in the country. I hope everyone recognizes that it is a jewel. And so many places to soak up great music in a unique setting. I’m encouraged every day by the arts and how much value people place on it.

Q. What else do you find encouraging?

DK: There’s talk of starting an artists’

colony in an abandoned church on

Charlotte and making it into a cooperative so you could have it all under one roof, so that people don’t have to sell their own homes to be able to have their

creative endeavor—that would be cool. And for a while they were talking about opening a film studio where the fairgrounds are now. I would love to see a big sound studio in Nashville; it’s such a natural. And a shout-out to Nashville Arts

Magazine! If we could really expose

people to the incredible folks creating things in our state and communities, I think people will be so surprised, because I think every single person walking around here does something creative.

Q. I consider you an artist for your work in journalism and film making. Would you agree?

DK: I would like to hope that I’m an artist on some level. I

certainly grew up surrounded by art. Both of my parents were very creative. Even though my dad was an auto mechanic, he created some of the greatest looking sculpture and other art that I’ve ever seen. And my mother was always encouraging art. So it’s no coincidence that my older sister is an art teacher; my brother (although he works as an industrial engineer) is an incredible painter; my younger sister writes songs and is a graphic artist, and I love to paint too, although my path was really more music than visual art.

I’ve always been a musician. I’ve played flute since I was in the third grade, and I don’t do it much anymore, but that’s what I studied in college. I always either wanted to play in an orchestra or conduct. Then I got involved in a campus radio station, of all things. Originally I thought I’d combine my arts background with journalism and maybe be a critic, but then I fell into news, probably at a very exciting time when CNN was just coming around. In fact, my first job offer was at CNN, and I turned it down, because I thought, this thing is not going to last. And now, of course, you can see why I’m so wise in my decision making!

Q. You actually had a talk show on the radio.

DK: Yeah, I had the first irreverent talk show on this small, liberal arts campus in the late ‘70s. Donahue was getting really hot then, and I thought, oh, we could do this on the radio. The power of the thing was like a Dixie cup on a string, just to the edge of campus, but we thought we were doing something very edgy. And I thought, this seems like fun. Not that it was easy, but it was less effort than the music; it came naturally. That was part of the journey in deciding to study journalism.

Q. You sure make it look easy.

DK: Well, I enjoy it. It’s always different; that’s the best thing about the news game. It’s different than when you are working long-term on a documentary, trying to get the most out of the same story and looking at it in a variety of ways. Not that we don’t do that in news, but news is changing so much that it satisfies your appetite for doing something different every day.

Q. How has news changed since you became a newscaster?

DK: On a technical side, in so many ways. When I first started we were carrying gear that was practically connected with umbilical cords. We couldn’t get that far from the battery belt, and we had 50–60 pounds of stuff. It took forever to edit it together, and half the time we were waiting for film to process. We’ve gone from tape that is two inches wide to now using computer cards. And along with those technological advances we’ve got immediacy also. Now we can broadcast live as it’s happening, and that’s not necessarily always good, because you don’t always understand what’s unfolding in front of you. Can you offer decent context or explanation for what is happening? So there’s still room for pause in the immediate news-gathering world—pause to make sure we’re doing the right thing, that we’re telling the right story, and that we’re not presenting information in such a way that is skewing the story by its immediacy.

Q. Your other projects seem like a way of completing these other aspects of your interests. For instance, your love of music has translated into several projects, including music videos.

DK: And doing concert performance presentations for the Country Music Hall of Fame, live shows for some artists. That’s really fun, because I think I do have a pretty good sense of what’s happening with the music, and that makes it easier to direct and edit, I think.

Q. How does your production company, Genuine Human Productions, select the stories that you film?

DK: I try to keep it down to four words: real people, true stories. What really happens is often way more fascinating than you could ever imagine. A lot of times I’ve used uniquely Nashville or Middle Tennessee underground material that’s not readily exposed to people. Because, let’s face it, I can’t just take off and go to the Himalayas and spend time with indigenous peoples like some documentarians. This is my world, and I have to do things around a 2-to-11 job every day where I’m constantly on call. Right now I’m sitting on about seven half-started, easily-finished projects, but something always seems to come up. And it’s obviously been a couple of really tumultuous years.

Despite her very public life, many people may not realize that in the last two years Demetria’s mother and sister were both diagnosed with breast cancer (both are well today); her beloved father was first diagnosed with terminal lung cancer then passed soon after to a stroke, and her cherished cat of 14 years passed away. All this before losing her best friend unexpectedly several months ago.

DK: On April 8 I got the call in the middle of the night that Dan [Miller] had passed away, on this trip to Augusta, Georgia, that he had talked about for months and months. That day he had written in his Facebook that he had just seen Arnold Palmer and some other legend play, and it had been a great day. I wrote back, “I hope it was everything you ever dreamed it would be.” And that turned out to be my last communication with Dan, never knowing, of course, that he would never come back from that trip. But I felt so good that that was the last thing that I put in words to one of the best friends that I ever had in my life. It’s still pretty raw at times, but now you start thinking about the little things that you did right. We never, ever argued, except that we constantly bickered. And that’s a great sort of bond to have with someone else, where you have this great static discourse. That’s such a rare thing, and I consider myself so lucky to have had that kind of a partnership with someone. But that’s what happens when you sit next to someone every day for two and a half hours a day, literally elbow to elbow for almost 25 years.

Q. How incredible that two newscasters that are so loved, Dan Miller and Walter Cronkite, should pass away months apart.

DK: I don’t think I’m overstating it—Walter Cronkite and Dan dying in the same year was a real blow [to journalism]…because, like it or not, Dan was the Walter Cronkite of Nashville. And in a local way, he did it better than anyone else will ever do it. I firmly believe that.

Q. There have got to be so many markets out there, bigger markets, that would love to have you. Why have you stayed here in Nashville?

DK: Really, is there a better place to live than Nashville? I really enjoy the people, the climate, so many places to soak up great music in a unique setting, the arts scene, the film-making community…we are having a lot of fun with the 48 Hour Film contest—and again, the Nashville Film Festival. I’m very encouraged by the arts and how much value people place on it here. I think you could do a lot worse than spend 25 years in Nashville. That’s a blessing.

Q. Do you see yourself continuing on in the news?

DK: I hope so! It still excites me. I’m still very interested in doing stories. I go out; I’m always working on something—not only my own endeavors but for the station as well. I really enjoy investigating stuff, either finding stories that haven’t been done or getting to the bottom of things that might have been untold. And I think that as long as your pulse gets a little bit faster when a good story’s happening, I think that’s a good indication that you should stick with it, and there’s still so much to do and say and discover.

Demetria has an interesting effect on people. When you spend time with her, and you see her face light up talking about her classic cars or hear her gush about a musician’s great performance, you find yourself smiling long afterward. At the same time, you leave her presence almost feeling smarter…realizing that you suddenly know a lot more than you did before you met her. But that’s part of Demetria’s magic. This warm, generous personality who is so well liked and respected is a loud promoter of the arts in this town, and she tells it like it is, every night, in our living rooms. How lucky are we?

by Lisa Venegas | Photography by Jerry Atnip