BirminghamWatch

Journalists Can’t Let Horrors on the Job Get to Them

This post about the mental health effects of reporting on awful news stories kept getting delayed in favor of other timely topics because I figured another news peg would be right around the corner. A risky assumption it was not. Thursday, five journalists witnessed the state-administered suffocation death of an Alabama Death Row prisoner. Few reporters go a career without having to report on a horrific event, such as a war, a mass shooting or even a violent crime with a single victim. According to the Columbia Journalism School’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, the psychological toll of seeing and hearing about the heinousness that people are capable of can include sleeplessness, unwelcomed recurring thoughts of the violence, a sense of impending doom and anger. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

AIIJ Announces New Executive Director, Board Members

The Alabama Initiative for Independent Journalism has hired André Natta as executive director this month, marking a new investment in the nonprofit news organization that has published BirminghamWatch since 2015. Read more.

by BirminghamWatch

Lifelong Journalist and BirminghamWatch Founder Carol Nunnelley Dies

Carol Nunnelley, founding executive director of the Alabama Initiative for Independent Journalism, died Dec. 3 after a long illness. Her more than 50-year career as a journalist led to many important initiatives, both locally and nationally. Nunnelley began her career as a reporter at The Birmingham News in 1966, when women were still something of an oddity in newsrooms. Read more.

by BirminghamWatch

Birmingham’s Jazz Tradition and How It Shaped the Sound of America

“Magic City: How the Birmingham Jazz Tradition Shaped the Sound of America” (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) by Burgin Mathews Mathews will speak and sign copies of “Magic City” at the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame on Saturday, 5-7 p.m., and at the Birmingham Historical Society on Sunday, 3-5 p.m. Birmingham has been waiting for this book for a very long time. In my 30 years as an archivist, I directed many local students and out-of-town tourists to the site of Tuxedo Junction and shook my head no when asked, “Isn’t there a good book on jazz in Birmingham?” Now there is, “Magic City: How the Birmingham Jazz Tradition Shaped the Sound of America.” Read more.

by James L. Baggett

Not a Swift Move by Gannett

My application to become The (Nashville) Tennessean’s Taylor Swift beat reporter failed. That’s possibly because, as a person entrenched in his habits, I have never heard a Taylor Swift song*. This is a real job, to the alarm of many serious journalists in the business. There’s also a Beyonce beat reporter position for hire. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

A Media Ethics Case With a Tragic Consequence

Cynics may be surprised to learn that media codes of ethics exist and take more than 30 seconds to read. That’s because media wield tremendous power — power customarily used for the public good but sometimes misused to disastrous effect. The Alabama news website 1819 News published a story Wednesday revealing, against his will, that F.L. “Bubba” Copeland, the mayor of Smiths Station and the pastor of First Baptist Church of Phenix City, posted social media photos of himself dressed as a woman. This included lingerie pictures, and the story also said he offered online encouragement to people considering gender transition. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

New Book Explores the Meaning of Birmingham

“Learning From Birmingham: A Journey Into History and Home” (University of Alabama Press, 2023) by Julie Buckner Armstrong Birmingham is a place that requires explanation. The city’s racial past makes it a source of fascination and contempt. If you live in Birmingham, you know that outsiders often come at you with questions, and sometimes attitude. For African American residents, the attitude can come in the form of hillbilly jokes and a lack of respect. It was these type experiences that inspired Birmingham poet Dianne Mills to compose the wonderfully profane “Don’t Say S—t ‘bout Birmingham.” White residents also experience a lack of respect from outsiders, a sense — sometimes said out loud — that we must be a bit backward or simply not smart enough to realize that we live in a terrible place and should probably leave. White residents can also experience suspicion regarding our racial attitudes. Call it the taint of Bull Connor. But for many of Birmingham’s white sons and daughters, there are no questions an outsider can ask that we have not already asked ourselves. Read more.

by James L. Baggett

In Gaza Hospital Reports, the Crutch of Attribution Failed

Nothing sets up the news media for errors and remorse better than the bad combination of major breaking news and the immediate lack of information about that news. Audiences demand information pronto, and the media have zippo. This was the case when an explosion occurred Oct. 17 at a Gaza City hospital. The New York Times soon posted this big, online headline: “Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.” The headline went through several versions, including one that added “At Least 500 Dead.” The “Palestinians” in “Palestinians Say” was the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Health Ministry. Other media around the globe produced similar headlines, including some with no attribution. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

Atrocities in Israel Cause News Media to Show More of Horrifying Truth

With social media showing so much ghastly video from the Hamas terrorism in Israel in the past week, the news media certainly don’t serve as the gatekeeper for what the public can see. But news organizations still reach a lot of people who won’t go hunting for content on social media, so their decisions of how graphically to depict awful events still matter. What I’ve seen lately are news media that believe the realities in Israel and in the Gaza Strip demand pushing, but still not ripping, the envelope of traditional bounds. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

From a Bad Situation Comes a Powerful Defense of Local Journalism

“Most family newspaper sale announcements bear some variation of stock language regarding the new owner's ability to ‘assume the families' stewardship,’ ‘continue to provide strong local reporting,’ and ‘maintain the legacy’ of the selling family. Sadly, we feel that none of that will be true in our case.” — George Lynett, publisher emeritus of Times-Shamrock Communications Read more.

by Tom Arenberg