• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, July 21, 2008

John Seigenthaler, a well-known NBC anchor and the son of a noted editor of the Nashville Tennessean, is joining a family PR firm.

Anchor of the weekend nightly news on NBC for eight years until 2007, he joins Seigenthaler Public Relations (SPR) as CEO of the New York office; the firm is based in Nashville.

Other NBC News-related duties that Seigenthaler performed included an anchor post at MSNBC and substitute hosting of the "NBC Nightly News." He offered a calm, yet confident and knowledgeable delivery.

His father, who shares the same name, joined the Nashville paper in 1949, but in 1960 left to become an aide to Robert Kennedy at the Justice Department. Two years later, he was back as editor of the Tennessean and stayed until 1991 in various senior posts.

Seigenthaler's cousin, Elizabeth Seigenthaler Courtney, is Chairman-CEO of SPR, which also has an office in Chicago.

Courtney said Seigenthaler's "experience and national reputation in communications, coupled with his incisive strategic abilities, will be tremendous assets to our clients. Our close family ties obviously make this announcement all the more gratifying for us."

The firm was founded in 1972 by Courtney's father; her two sisters also work there.

Seigenthaler's career began at the Nashville NBC station in 1980, and he returned there 13 years later as a co-anchor of the evening news on the ABC station.