You’ve got to hand it to Adam Sichko, a senior reporter with the Nashville Business Journal.

Five years ago, Amazon was shopping the country for a new headquarters location that promised 50,000 jobs and a $5 billion corporate investment. Which state and city would give them the most incentives (money)?

Journalist Adam Sichko followed up on the secret Amazon bid and got the public records that detailed it — five years later.

Sichko — and other reporters – wanted to know Tennessee’s offer.

Bob Rolfe, then the commissioner of the state’s Economic and Community Development agency, invoked a state law that allowed him to keep confidential information he deemed “sensitive” for five years.

Well, that five years was up earlier this year, and a reporter with an incredible memory or a date on his calendar requested the records. As often with ECD, it took a few months to get the records.

State ends up offering Amazon more money for fewer jobs

In a highly readable report published by the Nashville Business Journal on June 6, Sichko outlines how much Tennessee offered Amazon in its initial bid, and how much they ended up offering — more money for fewer jobs later.

You can read it here: “Moose Hunt: The Secret File of Amazon’s Recruitment.” There’s a paywall if you’re not a subscriber, but it costs only $4 to get a temporary subscription for four weeks. And hey, you might decide it’s worth it keep up with Sichko’s reporting.

Commissioner: Sharing state Amazon bid would jeopardize ECD’s ‘trade secrets’

One interesting tidbit I’ll share because it gives insight into how state government officials value secrecy is a quote in the story from Rolfe: Releasing the records at that time would have jeopardized “what I’d call our ‘trade secrets’… our go-to-market strategy of how we incent certain projects.”

This kind of thinking — that state governments are competing with each other and the only way to win is to be secretive — only drives up the betting game between governments. Many have argued that allowing the government to operate in the dark results in wasteful subsidies and helps the companies more than it helps the communities. The transparency around Tennessee’s economic development results is quite dismal, as I’ve written about extensively before. But that’s another story.

Today, we just want to get a behind-the-scenes look at the Amazon bid. You might be surprised to learn that we ended up offering more taxpayer money for much fewer jobs. And Amazon still has not met even that job target.

Here’s to all journalists out there who know the power of the followup.