Two popular fan choices to replace “Redskins” as the nickname of Washington’s NFL franchise are “Pigskins” and “Red Tails” (in honor of the World War II fighter pilots from Tuskegee, Alabama). I suggest owner Daniel Snyder make everyone happy with a compromise choice of “Pig Tails.” (Please push your automated laugh track button now.)

Sports team nicknames can be funny, but the Washington franchise’s adherence to its 87-year-old name in the face of multiple protests in recent decades is not funny. Native American activists brand the name as racist. The franchise cites tradition and says the name pays tribute to the heritage of American Indians. But on Monday, Snyder, who once vowed he would never change the name, agreed to do so. It’s part of a national awakening about memorials and symbols that demean traditionally oppressed groups, but mostly it’s because some big-time corporations threatened to withdraw sponsorship of the Redskins. Read more.

Imagine giving some money to an investment broker and when you later ask what the broker did with it, you’re told it’s none of your business. I see no difference between that and what agencies of state and local governments in Alabama do whenever they reject or ignore a citizen’s request for government records.

This happens too often in Alabama and elsewhere:

— In June, the city of Decatur denied an open-records request by multiple news outlets for disciplinary records of a police officer involved in a physical assault of a storeowner.

— In May, the environmental advocacy group Gasp and the Environmental Defense Alliance filed a lawsuit against three state of Alabama agencies that have denied access to emails involving state opposition to a federal environmental cleanup of a North Birmingham neighborhood.

— Last year, the state Attorney General’s Office (one of the agencies sued by Gasp) rejected a request by an Alabama Media Group reporter to see a contract signed with an industrial safety expert as part of a new plan to allow death-penalty executions by nitrogen gas.

— In 2017, WBRC-TV asked to see the $2.6 million contract between the city of Birmingham and a company called ShotSpotter that detects gunshots and pinpoints their location. The station also asked for data compiled by ShotSpotter. Three years later, the city still has not provided the data or even the contract.

— You’d think that in a pandemic, when smart behavior depends on having full and accurate information, that there’d be no secrets. But you’d be wrong, as shown by the Alabama Department of Public Health’s refusal of an AMG request to identify individual state-licensed nursing homes that have reported coronavirus cases.

In each of these cases, there is a legitimate public interest. And in each of these cases, the reason cited for rejection was an incorrect interpretation of Alabama’s open-records law.
Read more.

President Trump’s reported statement that journalists who publish leaked information should be “executed” is a more explicit and heinous extension of his repeated “enemy of the people” trope. It’s so far beyond the pale that the only necessary reaction is ridicule, then dismissal as nothing more than Trump venting berserkly in private*.

Except for the fact that it has happened.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that in the past 18 months, 14 journalists around the world have been murdered because they were journalists. UNESCO reports some that CPJ does not, including one as recently as this month. Some of the assassinations have suspected ties to government officials, others to political or criminal groups.
Read more.

The homicide of George Floyd and the subsequent street protests have illuminated failings not only among law enforcement agencies but also among many mainstream news organizations. Along with other issues, the well-documented lack of racial diversity on newsroom staffs has shown itself in harmful and embarrassing ways.

Perhaps a black journalist in The New York Times’ chain of editing, or simply a heightened awareness created by a more diverse department, would have anticipated the valid internal and external criticism that U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton’s published idea to send the military to “restore order” in American cities posed a safety threat to protesters and journalists, especially black ones. “This puts our Black staff members in danger,” the newsroom union wrote.
Read more.

First came one wave of devastation. Then swiftly came another.

That’s not the precise story of the coronavirus, though in the end it may turn out to be. But it is the story of newsrooms getting piled on by adverse conditions.

Lost advertising put the journalism industry into a decade-long spiral of closures, layoffs and diminished products that was still happening at the time of the virus outbreak. COVID-19 halted events, shut down businesses, and savaged advertising even further. News companies around the nation responded as they always had, with yet more slashing of expenses in the forms of permanent layoffs, temporary furloughs, and pay cuts that they present as temporary but that are likely to become permanent. Read more.

Thursday’s action by Advance Local news websites, including AL.com, to eliminate readers’ ability to post comments beneath site stories was so jaw dropping that it reminded me of Playboy magazine’s decision to eliminate fully nude photos of women. Take what was once a cornerstone of your brand and business model and throw it away.

How well I remember, when I worked at AL.com in the 2000s, the emphasis on posting stories that would generate comments and other forms of reader “engagement.” Reporters were required to engage in a certain number of daily interactions with posters. This really wasn’t a bad thing, as it offered new and valuable chances for direct public feedback, a wider diversity of voices engaged in civic conversation, and even an occasional story tip. But then the lofty ideals got rained on by reality and washed away into a heap of mud and muck.

Website commentary deteriorated into a cesspool of misinformation, viciousness, physical threats, racism, misogyny and other forms of harm and ugliness that made me think some humans should not be allowed to reproduce. Efforts to moderate – meaning to remove comments that violated user agreements – were too inadequate to keep up with the volume of problems. Some Advance employees complained, but engagement was the priority of the corporate office.

Remarkably, Advance finally decided it had had enough. Read more.

The question posed to two classes of college journalism, film and public relations students was this: If you’re the editor of the Los Angeles Times, and you’re directing first-day, deadline coverage of the shocking death of former LA Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant and eight others, do you mention the rape case?

I got a yes – after 10 minutes of noes. The majority view was that discussion of Bryant’s 2003 felony sexual assault charge would be warranted in a few days – after a respectful period had passed to allow the family, the local community and adoring fans to grieve and pay tribute. I didn’t feel then, or now, that I should criticize as journalistically irresponsible any attempt to think ethically and compassionately about a publication decision and who might be harmed by it. We need more of that in media. And it certainly seems out of proportion to brand such a decision as irresponsible after some far more egregious examples of irresponsibility by professional media outlets reporting on the story.

Still, the decision of some news organizations to initially omit this chapter of Bryant’s life, or to give it a mention so brief that it smacked of forced obligation, seems like a failure. Read more.