Category: BirminghamWatch
BW’s Crenshaw Recognized With NFPW National Awards
Solomon Crenshaw Jr., a regular writer for BirminghamWatch, recently won a third-place award and honorable mention in the National Federation of Press Women’s Communicator’s Awards for two of his BirminghamWatch pieces, along with a first-place award for a story published by the Bending the Arc Project. Read more.
Why Lots of News Media Are Beating Up on Joe Biden
Tom Arenberg doesn’t believe nefarious reasons are at work in the avalanche of news stories and commentaries about Joe Biden’s mental fitness. It comes instead from some conventional journalistic behaviors that are currently on steroids. Read more.
Missing Piece of Trump Case Coverage: The Jurors
No one has published any interviews so far with members of the Manhattan jury that found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying records last week, but I’m certain multiple media outlets are trying. Juror names and addresses were shielded from the media and the public but I think it’s inevitable that enterprising reporters will eventually find a juror or two who is willing to talk. Read more.
Student Journalists Shine in Campus Protest Coverage
A student reporter at the Columbia Journalism School who is covering the campus protests there tweeted Wednesday that she was so overwhelmed that she had to quit … giving interviews to professional media. On this story playing out around the nation, it’s the campus media that are leading the way. Read more.
BW’s Solomon Crenshaw Jr. Takes Firsts in State Journalism Contest
Writer Solomon Crenshaw Jr. recently was given top state awards for two stories published by BirminghamWatch and was named the sweepstakes winner for his cumulative performance in this year’s contest.
Crenshaw won first place in the Alabama Media Professionals’ 2024 Communications Contest Award in the Specialty Articles – Government and Politics category with his story ”Sylvia Swayne Bucks Customs in House District 55 Runoff Race.”
A judge in that category said of Crenshaw’s story, “Good planning and organization; excellent use of quotes; demonstrates knowledge of government/political journalism.”
He also won first place in the contest’s Web and Social Media – Video for Web – Web Reporting, Single News or Feature Story category for his slideshow, “An Ode to Steve Ammons.”
A judge in that contest wrote, “This is a very sweet angle to what may have otherwise been considered a run-of-the-mill official departure story. Great idea setting this poem to a gallery of moving photos – this is truly going the extra mile.”
He also won five other first-place awards: Read more.
BW’s Solomon Crenshaw Jr. Takes Firsts in State Journalism Contest
Writer Solomon Crenshaw Jr. recently was given top state awards for two stories published by BirminghamWatch and was named the sweepstakes winner for his cumulative performance in this year’s contest.
Crenshaw won first place in the Alabama Media Professionals’ 2024 Communications Contest Award in the Specialty Articles – Government and Politics category with his story ”Sylvia Swayne Bucks Customs in House District 55 Runoff Race.”
He also won first place in the contest’s Web and Social Media – Video for Web – Web Reporting, Single News or Feature Story category for his slideshow, “An Ode to Steve Ammons.”
He also won five other first-place awards. : Read more.
Do You Solemnly Swear to Smile for the Camera?
Very misleading subtitle on MSNBC a few days ago: “World watches Trump hush money trial.”
No, the world isn’t, because TV news cameras aren’t allowed in the courtroom. And they should be. Read more.
Did a reporter really ask that question?
It’s about five hours after a cargo ship hit the Key Bridge in Baltimore, collapsing it and sending six construction workers on the bridge into the water. The city’s mayor is holding a press conference when a reporter asks him: “How long is it going to take to rebuild the bridge?”
Calmly and immediately, the mayor responds: “We shouldn’t even be having that discussion right now. The discussion right now should be about the people, the souls, the lives that we’re trying to save. There will be a time to discuss about a bridge and how we get our bridge back up but right now there are people in the water that we have to get out.”
On social media, the mayor got mostly applause. The reporter got mostly ripped apart. One X poster wrote: “Shoutout to our mayor Brandon Scott for focusing on the people and showcasing empathy, because the nerve of that reporter to ask about the bridge repair. Like, sir read the (expletive) room.”
I understand why many people saw the reporter’s question as disrespectful to the victims. But I don’t have a problem with it. How about you? Read more.
Author Gives Gritty Look at Life Growing Up in Central City
“Central City’s Joy and Pain: Solidarity, Survival, and Soul in a Birmingham Housing Project”: (University of Georgia Press, 2024) by Jerome E. Morris.
Jerome Morris has written a book about home.
Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in the Central City housing project on the northeast edge of downtown Birmingham, Morris came of age in a community that could be by turns brutal and nurturing.
It was, he writes, a place of “Block parties, freeze cups, shooting marbles … kissing in the hallways, fighting, borrowing butter and eggs, Powell School, my mama, five older brothers and a younger sister, the free summer lunch program, the Double Dutch Bus, Mr. Hook’s store, the Electric Poppers and the CC Poppers, free school breakfast and lunch, due bills, and the music of Frankie Beverly and Maze.”
Central City was a world of extremes — a world where many men were in prison, out of prison, or on the road to prison. But also it was a world where older people mentored and watched protectively over young people. Read more.
Balance in Journalism Is Good … Until It Isn’t
Two alarming recent headlines:
• “Why the age issue is hurting Biden so much more than Trump” (New York Times, Feb. 10)
• “Public equally concerned about Biden’s and Trump’s classified documents, new poll finds” (nbcnews.com, Jan. 29)
In politics, public perceptions like these arise because many people magnify events that support their existing views and distort or ignore those that don’t. That’s not the fault of the mainstream news media. But in some cases when perception does not match reality, the media are very much to blame. Read more.
