The future of Alabama Today: With great power comes great responsibility

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The greatest job I’ll ever have is to be a mother. I have three children, including a 4-year-old son. For months, he’s been increasingly devoted to all things Super Hero. He’s a Spider-Man fan, but after the third or so go-round with the Spider-Man 5-Minute bedtime book, I decided to expand his horizons into The Avengers, X-Men, and the whole crew.

A consistent refrain in each Spider-Man story is the sage advice Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben gave him, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

It’s been a while since I’ve written an editorial column, and for that, I apologize. I and I alone am responsible for and own this site and all of its content in its entirety. I answer to no one when it comes to Alabama Today, which is a blessing and a curse. My copy editors and writers can only nag me so much to do what needs to be done, but alas, I am back.

I’m constantly reminded that life comes at you fast, and it has for me and my family as well. Since March 2020, when COVID turned the world on its head, it feels like time has proven the saying, “The days are long, and the years fly by.”

In this last year and a half, I’ve been honored to join the team at Bluewater Broadcasting. What started as a temporary opportunity at the beginning of last year turned into a new job and what I hope to make a cornerstone of my career. You can find me as a talk radio host on News Talk 93.1 FM in Montgomery from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm central. I love my show, and if you’ve enjoyed my editorials over the years, you will too. Straight Talk with Apryl Marie gives me the opportunity to share my opinions on the news of the day in politics five days a week. Soon, we will integrate content from it into both news and editorial content. The job, which requires a 3-hour daily commute to be in a studio, has shaken things up quite a bit.

That’s not what has consumed most of my time and energy, though. Unfortunately, I lost my father, my North Star, to COVID, which still feels surreal to me to say or type. Life for a daddy’s girl who has lost both of her beloved fathers unexpectedly and much too young has been tough.

I decided to move to Montgomery towards the end of last year. I decided to postpone that move at the beginning of this year.

I decided to sell this website. I decided not to sell this website. Uncertainty has reigned, but no more.

So what comes next? With great power comes great responsibility. Alabama Today has the power to shape and drive conversation, to inform, and, yes, even entertain. So as we round out this year, we are poised to make our team and our content stronger than ever coming into 2023.

This site gives me the ability to communicate not just my thoughts and opinions in editorial form, which I will be doing more of, but also to bring you the opinions of others across a broad spectrum of ideological and philosophical backgrounds, which we as a team will also be doing more of.

While I frequently mock the Left, well-reasoned positions, even those I disagree with, have been welcome here on the pages of Alabama Today’s editorial section, a practice we will continue. We have and will continue to cover their stories in hard news as well.

Alabama Today will also be bringing back its afternoon newsletters, which you can sign-up for on the right side of our homepage.

Finally, I’m proud to announce that in the coming year, we will also be posting regular video updates that you can find on our Facebook page. These will be critical to following what is going on in the legislative session as we wait to see if the promises made during campaign season are easily forgotten.

I was asked recently to reflect on why I started this site. I started it because I was tired of reading editorial content dressed up as news on the traditional and digital news sites that existed when I moved to Alabama. I’ve always been proud of what my friend, Peter Schorsch, has done with his news site in Florida. Many have tried and failed to replicate it, including me. I am still confident that this site can be the best in the state with an unflinching dedication to keeping balance in our content.

What that means to you, dear reader, is this: More of the pointed editorial content I am known for, actively seeking out additional editorial contributions from around the state, growing into a regional news coverage medium with additional focus on local politics, video content, and more interaction on social media. Speaking of which, you can find our Facebook page here, my Facebook page here, our Twitter page here, and my Twitter page here.

This post is the first in a series about the state of news in our great state. Stay tuned for the next, where I will address the recently announced changes to print papers in this state and the implications that may have on digital media.