Weird confession: I love the feel of a newspaper in my hand. I love the sound and feel of adjusting it as I read from the top of the fold to the bottom. I love seeing how much column space is dedicated to which topics and how the pages have been laid out. What made page 2, and what was buried on page 6?
I pay for at least a half dozen newspaper subscriptions to local and national news outlets. I believe in good journalism, and I think that subscriptions are an important way to show that support. I enjoy editorial content by those I rarely agree with when it’s well-reasoned. I appreciate reporters who can tell a story without their personal bias telling me how they feel about the story or, even worse, how I should feel based on their opinions.
I check by-lines, seek out stories by personal favorites, and roll my eyes as I skip those who need more than an editor. They need a new career.
Why do I tell you this? Because I want you to understand that the news that the three biggest papers in the state, all owned by Alabama Media Group (AMG), would stop publishing print editions was not a welcome one. Not at all unexpected, but not something I’m celebrating. There is a sentimental value for many while picking up the newspaper and reading it over morning coffee. It’s more than words. It’s the experience.
The direction of the papers put out by AMG on AL.Com has changed in recent years, and not for the better. It has focused on quantity at the expense of the quality of content. They’ve pushed digital media, but to what end? A look at their social media accounts shows most stories have fewer interactions than I do fingers on a hand. They’re filling space just to fill it. One writer on the sports beat posted four stories about Black Friday sales, writing about the World Cup and then where you can get a price cut on a kitty litter scooper. That same reporter published five pieces within 36 hours on the hiring of a new football coach at Auburn.
Alabama Media Group’s failure to connect with readers within the state, however, has nothing to do with the lack of editorial guidance. The biggest complaint has been that they have pushed an elitist narrative of wokeness that has alienated most of their would-be readers in the state. Rather than meet people where they are on issues, the staff of AL.Com seems to think their time is better spent pointing at them and laughing while screaming to out-of-state liberals to look at how backward everyone is.
Don’t get me started on J.D. Crowe’s “opinion cartoons.” We get it, J.D. you hate everyone with an “R” beside our names and see each and every one of us as idiots with Klan hats and black hearts full of hate. For the love of all that’s holy, find a new angle.
If not for sports, crime, and an occasional home run by John Archibald, I’m not sure they’d be able to keep their lights on without grant funding for their tone-deaf narratives. Archibald’s series on the corruption of the Brookside Police department was among the best stories I’ve ever seen unfold. I checked the news daily for weeks for updates. One could only wonder what our state would be if, rather than hiring a newsroom full of people who wish they were living in New York or California, AL.Com focused on finding and growing the next crop of investigative reporters (and hope that they don’t run away to California like one award-winning writer did).
The Birmingham News was started in 1888, the Huntsville Times in 1910, and the Mobile Press Register in 1821. This is our state’s legacy media, and yet they are falling apart at the seams. The revelation that the combined total circulation in these three areas was only expected to be 30,000 by January was shocking. There will always be people who want to hold a newspaper.
So what are those like myself, voracious consumers of daily news at all levels, to do?
There are, of course, multiple independently run digital sites (including the one you’re reading) in the state, along with some excellent local papers (Hello Scott Buttrum at the Trussville Tribune). How do you know what to trust? In a world that tells you if an outlet isn’t a part of the legacy news, it has to be Fake News or Pay-to-Play?
Know that news done correctly, and I speak from experience, is both a labor of love and an industry. While non-profit outlets exist, reporters, executives, editors, and salespeople are not working for free. They may be, as I am, working with hopes of pushing others around them to do better. After this site launched, several other outlets copied content styles from us, from providing round-ups in one place to acknowledging women of power and influence and more.
Remember, it is incredibly disingenuous for reporters who work in newsrooms that produce content where the reader objectively can’t tell hard news from editorial to tell readers who they should or should not trust. Look no further than the coverage around the state and nation around bills to protect youth from developmentally inappropriate topics such as gender ideology and sexuality.
The media pushed as hard as the advocates themselves to create the false narrative that said the legislation or restrictions were about targeting the LGBTQ community rather than just drawing a line between what should be a parent’s responsibility and that of an educator. “Don’t say gay” is and was always a fake narrative. That didn’t stop AL.Com from publishing these headlines: Gender identity ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law turns Alabama classrooms into verbal landmine for teachers and Alabama’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill: What it would do; read the text.
So my advice: read as much as possible from as many sources as possible, and you’ll find what you’re looking for. If you like living in an echo chamber of your own thoughts and opinions shouted back at you, that’s out there somewhere. If you’re looking for straight down-the-middle content, that’s harder to find, but it is also out there. Mix and match mediums, print, digital, tv, and radio. Don’t give up.
The missing print newspapers will leave a void, but it can be filled if you look. I’m willing to bet you’ll find there was better quality out there all along.
Who knows, maybe the tides will change, and the powers that be at Alabama Media Group will return to old-school journalism fit to be printed and purchased. If and when that happens, I’ll be the first to get my hands on a hard copy.
This is an opinion column. Apryl Marie Fogel is the owner and publisher of Alabama Today. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter or on News Talk 93.1 FM Montgomery.
