The narrative that Alabama Media Group owners of AL.com clearly want its readers to believe is straightforward: a competing digital news site recklessly outed the late Smith Station Mayor F.L. “Bubba” Copeland, lead pastor at the First Baptist Church of Phenix City, for “wearing women’s clothing and makeup,” seemingly leading to his suicide. This line about clothing and makeup has been used repeatedly, appearing verbatim in eight out of 10 different news and editorial stories by eight different reporters of AL.com.
The reality of the original reporting done by 1819 News, however, is far more complicated, and the mayor’s behavior was far more sinister.
The original two stories, the firsts in a series that sources say 1819 News respectfully paused, rather than continuing after Copeland’s death, detail a public official not only “wearing women’s clothing and makeup,” but also publishing violent erotic fiction of people in his community, posting images of himself in various states of undress with explicit captions, posting images that have been confirmed to have been of at least one local minor and several local young women and other distressing behavior.
Is it possible that it would be irresponsible of an outlet to report on these facts, which have been verified by multiple sources? NBC News did not think so. They described the situation accurately, adding a few key and relevant details saying, “His death came two days after 1819 News, a conservative Alabama news site, published pictures of him wearing women’s clothing and makeup, and the same day the site published a follow-up article stating that Copeland wrote and shared a violent fictional story online featuring a woman he knew in real life and posted photos of minors and women online without their consent.”
