A Speculative Top 10 List of Fox News’ “Journalistic Processes”

March 20, 2023

Fox News may not be capable of shame, but the public humiliation of it from the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit just keeps getting better.

Dominion claims Fox News damaged it by knowingly broadcasting false claims that Dominion engaged in vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Among the current legal contests in the case is whether to protect or reveal some internal Fox communications that are currently blacked out in legal filings.

On March 10, Fox lawyers argued for continued secrecy because “prematurely disclosing these other details on Fox’s internal and proprietary journalistic processes may allow competitors to appropriate these processes for their own competitive advantage.”

Just goes to show that you can find good comedy anywhere. Read more.

In the Quest for New Cancer Treatments, Researchers Look to Outer Space

March 21, 2023

The Southern Research team is studying how bacteria reacts in the microgravity environment, and whether it prompts the development of novel cancer therapies. Read more.

Big, Unanswered Questions Don’t Have a Statute of Limitations

March 7, 2023

After Alabama basketball player Darius Miles was charged with capital murder, coach Nate Oats called NFL Hall of Famer Ray Lewis for advice. I don’t know what Lewis might have told Oats beyond what has been reported, but he might have said: “The damn news media will never let it go.” Read more.

Gov. Kay Ivey Opens the Legislative Session With Her State of the State Address

March 8, 2023

Gov. Kay Ivey delivered her State of the State address to Legislators Tuesday night, using the opportunity to call a special session on spending of pandemic relief funds and possibly giving state residents one-time tax rebates of up to $400 for individuals and $800 for families. In her address she also focused on the need to improve education, from kindergarten to college-bound students.

Read her full speech.

Recorded State Government Meetings Available Through New League of Women Voters Channel

December 12, 2022

The League of Women Voters has established a channel on which citizens can watch videos of the state Senate, House of Representatives and legislative committee meetings, searchable by keywords and phrases. “Ultimately, we anticipate that the Alabama Channel will improve civic engagement and government transparency,” said Kathy Jones, president of the education fund. Read more.

The 2023 Alabama Legislative Session Starts Tuesday. Here’s Your Preview.

March 7, 2023

Lawmakers return to Montgomery at a time when money is flush thanks to federal COVID funds. Education is among the top issues expected to generate discussion. Read more.

Birmingham Council Sets Agenda for the Legislature, Backing Exhibition Driving, Illegal Dumping and More Bills

February 28, 2023

The Birmingham City Council has set its legislative agenda for 2023, establishing lobbying priorities for when the state Legislature convenes in March.

New priorities for the city include battling exhibition driving and allowing local banks to buy tax-delinquent properties, along with a slate of recurring issues.

The council’s list was approved without recommendation from Mayor Randall Woodfin’s office, which in the past has lobbied for its own separate list of legislative priorities. Read more.

Read the full City Legislative Package for 2023

I’m Failing to Get Outraged About the Death of The Birmingham News

February 26, 2023

Gonna make this short because, as grateful as I am for every wonderful person who has ever read an Arenblog post, I write primarily for my students, and I can assure you they don’t give a sheet* about the end of newspapers in three of Alabama’s largest cities.

Today marked the end of The Huntsville Times, The Mobile Press-Register and The Birmingham News, for which I busted my tail for 30 years and in which I took enormous pride (on its good days, anyway). Read more.

‘It’s a fight for freedom.’ Ukraine backers call for continued arms support 1 year into war.

February 25, 2023

A group of supporters gathered at Railroad Park in Birmingham to draw attention to human rights violations in the country and call for continued arms support from the U.S. Read more.

Preparing for the ‘Experience of a Lifetime’: Birmingham Students to Sing at Carnegie Hall

February 24, 2023

The choir at Ramsay High School is heading to Carnegie Hall this May. It’s an opportunity to boost school pride and to give some students the experience of a lifetime. Read more.

‘Injustice, Inc.’ Uncovers How Some in the Legal System Use Poor Families to Get Rich

February 22, 2023

Daniel L. Hatcher discusses his book, which looks at how state agencies exploit impoverished families to make money through the U.S. juvenile justice system. Read more.

‘Unreformed’ Podcast Tells the Largely Untold Story of an Abusive Alabama Reform School

February 8, 2023

A conversation with journalist and podcast host Josie Duffy Rice details the troubled history of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, or Mt. Meigs. Read more.

Hoover City Schools canceled Derrick Barnes’ visit. He says it’s political.

February 1, 2023

Hoover school officials say they canceled the Black children’s book author’s visit due to a controversial social media post. Officials never saw the post after an anonymous parent reported it. Read more.

New Book Explores Stories of Early African American Activists in Birmingham

January 26, 2023

Segregation in the New South: Birmingham, Alabama, 1871-1901 (Louisiana State University Press, 2023) by Carl V. Harris

Birmingham is known around the world as a place where African Americans fought and sometimes died to secure their rights as citizens and dismantle Jim Crow segregation. But Jim Crow did not spring up fully formed, nor was it a system that had always existed. It was the product of a long and tortuous push and pull between blacks seeking justice and whites seeking control.

At its birth in 1871, Birmingham was a Reconstruction-era city, and Birmingham came of age in a time when white Southerners and African American Southerners, many only a few years removed from enslavement, were struggling to find their places in a new post-war racial order. This is the story, and the stories of early African American activists who are largely unknown today, that Carl V. Harris tells in his new book Segregation in the New South: Birmingham, Alabama, 1871-1901.

Harris, who taught history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, died before completing this book. His colleague, W. Elliott Brownlee, edited and finished the manuscript. Harris’ earlier book, Political Power in Birmingham, 1871-1921 (University of Tennessee Press, 1977), was the first scholarly book on Birmingham’s history and it is still indispensable for anyone wanting to understand the political dynamics of Birmingham’s early decades. Read more.

Sometimes You Shouldn’t Stay Out of the Story

January 25, 2023

In late December, a reporter for the Bend (Oregon) Bulletin who was assigned to report on dangerously cold weather wrote a first-person account of his decision to summon help for a shivering woman living in a tent. He feared she might not survive the night. Compassionate and heroic, is it not?

Apparently not, because he got torn to shreds on Twitter – so much so that the next day he posted that he was taking a break from the “unrelenting hatred” on the platform.

Read more.

Jefferson County Drug Overdose Deaths Hit New Peak in 2022

January 24, 2023

Drug overdose deaths topped gun and vehicle-related deaths investigated last year by the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office. Read more.