When a news website is not really a news website

For some reason, the South Birmingham Times thinks Colorado’s governor deserves a bigger headline than Alabama’s.

Apparently I shouldn’t be wondering about the agenda of my city’s newly elected mayor or what improvements I can find at the renovated public library down the street. Apparently I should be thinking instead about the awful “C” rating given to Democratic Colorado governor Jared Polis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., for poor fiscal management.

 Because that was the top story when I visited the news website of the South Birmingham Times on Thursday (and on Friday!)

 The site is one of nearly 1,300 pretend local news sites launched by a company called Metric Media in the past several years. That’s about twice as many as the nation’s largest newspaper chain.

 Alabama has 20 of them, according to The New York Times, with seemingly legitimate and neutral names such as the Tuscaloosa Leader, the Jefferson Reporter and the Decatur Times. But the actual mission of Metric Media sites is to support Republican political candidates and right-wing causes. (For the whole list, NYT subscribers can click here.)

 As both the New York Times and another recent article in the Wall Street Journal point out, supposed news sites with ideological bents have sprung up on behalf of candidates and viewpoints on both ends of the political spectrum. The problem, no matter the political leaning, is that readers potentially believe they’re getting legitimate news when they’re actually getting skewed news or flat-out propaganda.

The sites in Alabama are pretty easy to recognize as garbage. The template About Us page says Metric Media was established “to fill the void in community news after years of decline in local reporting by legacy media.” It’s correct about the decline and the void. It continues: “This site is one of hundreds nationwide to inform citizens about news in their local communities.” That’s a canard.

I looked at the homepages of three of the Alabama sites. I found one local story. Below the big Jared Polis headline, the South Birmingham Times had a story about a jury convicting a Vestavia Hills man of a crime. The story came from a press release. Seven months ago.

The Decatur Times’ lead story also came from a press release. A woman from Laredo, Texas, was sentenced for cocaine distribution. Eight months ago. In the U.S. Southern District of Alabama.

Want to write a letter to either newsroom? They have the same address. It’s in Delaware.

The unacknowledged but recognizable Republican slant showed on both sites in the story reporting that the top marginal tax rate in Alabama – a statistic much higher than the actual tax rate – could reach 54% under Joe Biden’s tax plan, according to the Tax Foundation. No mention of Donald Trump’s plan. My speculation is that if Alabama were a contested election state rather than a virtual Republican lock, Metric Media would be feeding more content to its Alabama sites.

Check out the headlines on the right side of the homepage. Does the Decatur Times’ webmaster (probably not a human) think the website serves Decatur, Illinois?

The New York Times further reported that political groups and public relations firms can pay for Metric Media (mostly freelance writers) to create a desired story, including specified interview questions. No legitimate news organization allows this, of course, and such a practice magnifies the audience deception.

It’s possible to cite cases of hidden bias in journalism, obviously, from corporate level steering of editorial decisions to unspoken agendas of individual journalists. But it’s especially nefarious when non-journalism tries to present itself as journalism. Which happens all the time. Because communicators engaged in persuasion or propaganda know their messages become more effective if the audience accords them the credibility of vetted, impartial news.

That’s why, for instance, native advertising is made to look like the surrounding news content, save for a teeny tiny label identifying it as advertising. That’s why innumerable TV commercials are staged as a news broadcast or a press conference. That’s why the US military wrote and paid Iraqi newspapers in 2005 to publish propaganda supporting the US mission in Iraq in the form of news articles.

It is not easy to identify websites with undisclosed political motives. (It’s easier if a site is just making stuff up but even then a lot of people fall for it.) Some recommended steps for spotting bias:

• Look at headlines. Are all the negative ones about people and causes on one side of the political divide? Is the language inflammatory?

• Look at individual stories. Do they present both sides of an issue or controversy?

• Read stories on the same subject published by other, reputable news outlets. Do you get a different picture?

• Read the About Us page. You may (or may not) find honesty there. Pay special attention to ownership and funding sources, if they’re mentioned.

• Google the names of bylined writers. What’s their background and for what publications have they written previously?

• Check out a watchdog website that rates the bias of news sites, such as NewsGuard, Media Bias Fact Check, Ad Fontes Media’s bias chart or the Global Disinformation Index.

(For even more advice, click here.)

We face a monumental election and a pandemic, two hot-button issues that have prompted no-holds-barred tactics to win public opinion, including the appropriation of the powerful mantle of journalism for political persuasion. And that’s civically dangerous, because persuasion works best when people don’t realize that’s what it is.

Crimson White journalists experience the other side of the questions

National media have paid much attention to how colleges have handled the pandemic. It’s a newsworthy topic, of course, though I suspect some of the attention comes from the appeal of presumed narratives such as “Irresponsible College Kids Break Rules” and “Colleges Endanger Lives to Play Football.”

CW photo editor Hannah Saad on CNN

The best way to report the subject is to send journalists to campuses for several days. Alas, too expensive and time consuming for many news organizations. So, the next-best option is to talk to smart current students who are witnessing and even reporting on events. That’s why several staff members of the University of Alabama’s independent campus news outlet, the Crimson White, have appeared on various national and even international news programs lately. Very cool.

CW photo editor Hannah Saad (full disclosure: former student of mine) appeared on CNN Newsroom with Anderson Cooper and talked by phone to The Paul Finebaum Show. Media began contacting her after she tweeted photos of large or unmasked gatherings on and off campus during UA Bid Day.

CW news editor Reid Bolling (full disclosure: former student of mine) also appeared on CNN, once pre-recorded with John King and once live with Brooke Baldwin. CNN took an interest after seeing a CW story she wrote about students being moved out of their dorms to make way for students with COVID-19.

 Kaddyja Jallow, a CW culture writer, was interviewed on BBC Radio, which spotted the “UA ‘24” in her Twitter bio.

“Doing media” isn’t as easy as it seems, and it’s always eye-opening for journalists when they become the interviewee instead of the interviewer.

The CW journalists told me they knew the planned general topics, but not the specific questions they’d be asked, which is customary journalistic practice. They were mostly satisfied with their answers, they said. Hannah said she got good advice from my department colleague, Dr. Chris Roberts: Just say what you know; don’t predict future events. That’s good advice for lots of pundits in the media these days. 

Hannah said she wished she had given a more thorough answer to a good question asked by Finebaum, who is an adept interviewer: Would her reporting on care-free behavior end up adversely affecting students? Live formats don’t give much time to think, though.

 Hannah also witnessed the national media’s tendency toward unnuanced views of local issues. Coverage from national outlets focused on the lines of scofflaws outside Tuscaloosa bars, but Hannah thought the more interesting angle was the decision to have a Bid Day and how that helped to create the images that reached the nation.

CW news editor reid bolling on cnn (we like the shirt, reid)

 It’s easy to get nervous, of course, when millions of people are watching or listening. Reid, talking on her laptop in her kitchen, and Hannah, talking from the CW newsroom, couldn’t see their CNN hosts, which they both said made the experience easier. Kaddyja, talking to BBC Radio on a FaceTime audio call from her dorm room at 8 a.m., didn’t understand something the host said to her. Thinking she had muted herself, she asked her roommate for help. But she wasn’t muted. BBC edited that part out. 

 Reid has only one regret. She realized later that she wore the same shirt for both of her CNN appearances. “I promise I have more than one nice shirt!” she said.

 So these were educational experiences for these college journalists in ways both small and large. And when they’re national journalists, they’ll bring a little extra understanding when it’s their turn to interview a college journalist about who-knows-what hot issue on college campuses at that moment.

I did not save any opinions for a book

I at first disagreed with the criticism that investigative journalist Bob Woodward should have gone public right away with Donald Trump’s taped interview comments about the deadliness of the coronavirus in early February.  Instead, Woodward held them for publication in his book “Rage.”

The claim is that Woodward would have saved lives if the public knew Trump was lying when he repeatedly downplayed the danger during the virus’ early stages in this country. But after three-plus years of relentless conning and fabricating, I don’t think people still trusting Trump for health information would have believed Woodward anyway. Even with Trump on tape (“It’s fake!”). I doubt an audio snippet could have changed their behavior or the consequences. 

People assessing the threat based on a broader view of the evidence, not just on Trump’s portrayal, had plenty of other indicators – media stories, statements by other government officials, shutdowns in China – that the virus was serious business. They didn’t need a sneak peek of “Rage” to know to protect themselves.

But a related piece of Woodward’s book reporting, if known sooner, could have made a difference, a point insightfully offered on CNN on Thursday by Dr. Michael Saag, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at UAB.

Saag contracted COVID-19 after he picked up his son in the virus hotspot of New York for a car ride back to Birmingham in early March. Neither knew the son was infected. The focus of their precautions was on avoiding dangerous contact with others, he said. They didn’t focus on the possibility of transmission by air. “That was at a time in early March when we weren’t 100 percent sure about aerosols. I wish I had known that because we would have worn masks and we would have kept the windows cracked…. We were thinking transmission by contact back then. It wasn’t right.”

Yet Trump told Woodward in early February, presumably based on government data and intelligence not available publicly, that the virus for certain spreads by air.

Bob Woodward

Woodward argues that everything the president told him about the virus was already known at the time. He also argues, more persuasively, that he needed time to confirm the truthfulness of the president’s statements. Still, he accomplished that by May. And probably, if the reporter had passed along his information to associates at The Washington Post, as he has done before, a team of reporters could have nailed it down even sooner. (One other time, though, Woodward apologized for not sharing a discovery with The Post.)

A more immediate revelation, of course, blows up the remarkable access that Woodward gained to Trump and other insiders based on the concept and timeline of a book. And that would be a notable loss, for heavily reported books that go deeper and portray a bigger picture over time shed light that the daily grind of stories cannot. “Rage,” which comes out on Tuesday, may be especially valuable as an exceptionally penetrating view of the Trump presidency just two months before the most consequential presidential election in many decades.

Journalists at major news organizations often want to write books that piggyback on their daily work. Organizations let them, including granting long stretches of book leave, because it adds credibility and prestige to their bylines, and because if they don’t, a prized staff member might jump to somewhere else that does. Usually, the writer and organization management have an understanding that significant news uncovered for a book should get offered first for publication on regular platforms. But books will never sell if they’re just rehash. Judgments about grey areas are constant.

“You just breathe the air, and that’s how it’s passed.”

— Donald Trump to Bob Woodward on Feb. 7

The cost of delayed reporting is lower when revelations involve the important but still standard behind-the-scenes decision making and politics that characterize many of the books by journalists and former government officials these days. When the unearthed news is an actionable health or safety warning in the moment, though, the stakes don’t go any higher.

The president’s dishonesty aside, we didn’t need to hear a tape recording to know seven months ago to brace for a probable epidemic in this country. But knowing of airborne transmission is vital to defending against it, both now and then. It’s vital enough that neither the president nor a reporter should have withheld it.

This blog post is excellent, according to sources

President Trump claims The Atlantic “made up” its aghasting Thursday night report that the president has privately referred to dead American soldiers as “losers” and “suckers.” The magazine didn’t, as shown by subsequent confirmations by The Associated Press and other outlets. But it’s harder to refute claims of falseness when, as was the case here, a news organization relies solely on anonymous sources.

“These weak, pathetic, cowardly background ‘sources’ do not have the courage or decency to put their names to these false accusations because they know how completely ludicrous they are,” a former deputy White House press secretary tweeted Thursday night. Even some members of mainstream media, while praising The Atlantic’s reporting, called on the sources in the story to come forward.

Journalists have debated the ethics of this kind of attribution forever. They’ve also used it forever. The slam against unnamed sources is that they deprive readers of the ability to judge a report’s credibility for themselves. Further, the practice eliminates accountability for a source who speaks untruthfully or distorts information for a hidden personal or political agenda. Another flashing caution is that some of the audience doesn’t even understand what they’re seeing. A 2018 survey by the Media Insight Project reported that almost one-third of respondents believe not even the journalists themselves know the names of their “anonymous” sources (which is why “unnamed” or “confidential” is a better label). 

The compelling counterargument is that without confidential sources, some essential stories would never get published. Often, a source demands confidentiality in exchange for information not because of cowardice or nefarious motives but because of a legitimate concern over retaliation.

The clashing benefits and harms necessitate that news outlets set criteria for when they’ll use confidential sources. This is a typical checklist:

• A source’s information is a vital part of a story the public needs to know.

• The story contains multiple firsthand sources giving consistent accounts. The higher the source count, the better. (The Atlantic’s story relied on four, though not for every revelation.) 

• A source does not have a history of inaccuracy.

• There’s no way to report the story without confidential sources.

In addition to criteria for use, there are best practices:

• Assess a source’s motive. Is it apparently self-interest or public interest? (Still, I’d argue that motive is irrelevant if the information is true.)

• Don’t readily agree to confidentiality. Seek to persuade otherwise. (Some journalists don’t do this enough.)

• If sources insist on confidentiality, describe them as specifically as the sources will allow without identifying them. Readers can better judge credibility with an attribution such as “a senior FBI official who has seen the document” than an attribution such as “sources familiar with the situation.” (Again, some journalists don’t do this enough.)

• Tell readers why sources won’t allow publication of their names.

The criteria for use, obviously, are subjective. Which is why reliance on unnamed sources is rampant and sometimes excessive, especially in stories datelined Washington, D.C. The New York Times, for instance, reckoned with its overuse of such attribution following two significant errors by toughening standards in 2016. The Times, of course, was the foremost organization that allowed unnamed officials in the George W. Bush administration to build a phony case that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, leading to a costly war in Iraq.

More recently, CNN was reminded of the danger of deviating from the customary requirement of multiple sources. Three journalists resigned in 2017 after publishing a not-ready article about a Congressional investigation into Trump’s Russian connections that was based on a single unidentified source. A retraction, editor’s note and apology followed.

The Atlantic article is a justified and valuable use of confidential sources. It’s justified because with the Trump administration’s history of retribution, this story likely never surfaces without protection for the individuals telling it. It’s valuable not only as another brutal portrayal of the character of a president seeking re-election, but also as probable insight into significant decisions such as Trump’s inaction on Russian bounties for American military lives.

Withholding identities does make some of the audience wonder if they can trust what they are reading in a story. But I’d argue that the public still can assess its trust on a larger scale: They can decide whether a news outlet’s reputation reassures them (or doesn’t) that the story wouldn’t be there if it were less than ironclad.

The Trump administration is the most audacious and consequential example of certain governments at all levels that engage in actions detrimental to the public, then seek to cloak them with secrecy, propaganda and punishment of internal dissent. In such climates, confidential sources that meet exacting criteria are an imperative tool to find the stories the public deserves to know. Not knowing is so much worse.

Man, some of these new Associated Press style rules are crazy

On Monday my News Writing and Reporting students will hear the semesterly discussion of the value of Associated Press style, with which I have a love/hate relationship. There’s no doubt the pointless switch to the percent symbol instead of spelling out “percent” was solely to make me change my PowerPoint slides. Explaining why “noon” is OK and “midnight” isn’t will only take forever. And I haven’t completely recovered from the decision that “over” can mean “more than.”

Regardless, I emphasize the AP Stylebook in class as a great guide not only for consistent journalistic style and proper grammar, but also for respectful word choices and ethical policies involving sensitive subjects. I’m on board with the capitalized “Black” and the lower case “white.” There was no simple solution to that one.

But each year’s revisions inevitably make me scratch my head about at least a few of them.

The latest book has a new entry on gender-neutral language that is good and necessary. Words such as “policeman” and “mailman” are sexist, inaccurate and easily replaced with neutral words. The entry says “actresses” should be “actors.” “Waiter” should be “server.” I’m good with all that. But I find it borderline absurd that:

• “Manhunt” should be avoided in favor of “search”

• “Manpower” should be avoided in favor of “crew” or “staff”

• “Manhole” should be replaced by “maintenance hole”

• “Man-made” should give way to “human-made”

These are the silliest rules in the history of humankind.

Not since Day 1 have I felt this nervous about my job

a hand sanitizing station in Reese Phifer HALL

On Wednesday I’ll put on my armor, trek to Tuscaloosa and battle for four months against the coronavirus and other uncontrollable circumstances.

OK, enough with the melodramatic depiction. Save war analogies for doctors, nurses and real soldiers.

Still, I know from conversations and social media that faculty returning to the new semester at the University of Alabama and elsewhere share varying degrees of trepidation about whether they will be sufficiently protected from getting COVID-19 on campus. We need to worry about an invisible virus in the classroom, potential active shooters in the hallway, and Zoombombing online. Guess I can relax in the parking lot.

Many UA faculty members nonetheless plan to enter the classroom this fall, because that’s a better education for the students. And yeah, it gives the university some cover for continuing to charge full tuition. Slightly less than half of all UA courses will be taught face to face in classrooms. The ratio of enrollment to room size will allow social distancing. About one-third of all courses will be taught in “hybrid” fashion, meaning a few students in a socially distanced classroom each week with the remainder joining simultaneously by videoconferencing from a remote location. All other courses will be completely online.

I can’t speak to every situation, but generally the university granted teachers’ preferences for class format (though some subjects don’t allow flexibility). Teachers I know who fall in a COVID-vulnerable category will teach completely online.

My large lecture class, normally in a jam-packed room, will go completely online, with students in a live Zoom meeting. Two others of mine will be hybrid, and one, with nine students in a huge room, will operate face to face.

All in all, I consider the university’s protective steps sufficient enough that I’m willing to teach in classrooms. The university’s caps on number of people in a room – at least the caps I’m familiar with – are tighter than I thought they’d be. The university also mandates masks for everyone.

Occasional testing is part of the plan, too, but even though I understand the value of testing in fighting a pandemic on a macro scale, it’s not much comfort on a micro level because of false or slow results. A student or professor is only as non-threatening as what they did last night.

I’d trust 98% of my students with my life (which, come to think of it, isn’t merely an expression in this case). But the 2% can ruin it for everyone. And recent evidence of crowded locations in Tuscaloosa, Auburn and elsewhere is reason for alarm, if not total panic. (Report from youngest son as he drove past bars in downtown Tuscaloosa on Saturday night: “Packed.”) How bad could it get? In Chapel Hill, it got bad enough that the University of North Carolina on Monday halted in-person learning and will flip to remote teaching. Its semester was one week old.

One administrator at UA offered some smart advice: Assume everyone has the virus. That won’t be true, of course, but a lot of faculty and staff do want to know the number and rate of positive tests among people on campus, broken down by students and employees, on a daily basis. Locations of outbreak clusters are of vital public interest, too. None of this violates FERPA, the educational records privacy act.

The UA System hasn’t made such information public yet. Employees are taking on a health risk to help fulfill the university’s mission, thereby also benefitting the university financially. That creates an ethical obligation to provide key information that lets everyone know whether this experiment is going to blow up or not.

With huge stakes, maybe media will cover campaigns right this time

Occasionally I like to highlight interesting and useful research into journalism, because usually it gets lost in dense academic journals that no one ever reads. At least not voluntarily.

Donald Trump has presided over multiple crises in America, but don’t forget that Joe Biden has said some stupid things during campaign speeches.

I have just engaged in a prevalent failing of the mainstream political press: false equivalency, which means to give a similar volume of attention to two dissimilar and unequal sets of facts in order to appear fair and balanced. You might recall “But her emails…” from the presidential campaign coverage of 2016.

As we head toward an obviously monumental presidential election on Nov. 3, nonpartisan political reporters are doing their best to avoid their highly consequential mistakes of 2016 and some previous election cycles. With such a stark contrast between the two presumptive nominees – uh oh, I may have just engaged in the also common press failing of tempered euphemism – the stakes couldn’t be higher for the performance of the press over the next three months.

Constructive press criticism helps the media do a better job of fulfilling their role in the democratic election process, or at least of avoiding past blunders. Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, for instance, recently offered her ideas on how the political media can avoid the “epic journalistic failure” that was presidential campaign coverage in 2016.

Very helpfully, three academic researchers reviewed more than 300 articles of press criticism from the 2000 presidential election through the one in 2016. Using industry trade publications such as Columbia Journalism Review and the Poynter Institute, Elizabeth Bent and Ryan J. Thomas of the University of Missouri and Kimberly Kelling of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh identified continuing problems in press practices ($). (Political journalists could argue that the press criticism isn’t accurate, but this is a pretty big sample size to be all wrong.) Two main takeaways from the researchers’ work: the political press doesn’t break bad habits very well, which is a scary thought right now, and 2016 was an especially flawed showing in hindsight.

Some more-specific findings from the article in the latest issue of the Journal of Media Ethics:

• Coverage focuses way more on “the horse race” – who’s winning and why – than on policy. The authors cite one study of the 2016 campaign that found four times more space for the former than for the latter. (A good upcoming test case: Will coverage of Joe Biden’s VP choice emphasize her track record and fitness to be president, or the voting blocs she’ll appeal to?) 

• Despite the emphasis on the horse race, the press still gets it wrong sometimes. Many national outlets wrongly declared Al Gore the winner of the decisive state of Florida in 2000, prompting complaints not only of irresponsible haste but also of dissuading some people from voting. Heightened caution followed. In a different kind of error, in 2016, reporters’ excessive faith in polling led them to present a too-certain picture that Hillary Clinton would win.

• Polling has been a “constant problem,” including overemphasis on polls that may not truly reflect public opinion and failure to present or adequately explain margin of error. (Brief data journalism lesson: If Candidate A polls 51% and Candidate B polls 49% with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, who’s winning? Answer: You can’t tell. If you polled everyone instead of using a sample, Candidate B could poll as high as 51% or as low as 47%.)

• Even outside of polling, national political coverage has frequently failed to reflect key segments of the population, primarily racial minorities and voters who are rural and conservative. Not recognizing the mood of the latter group was an especial problem in 2016. Local and regional journalists did a better job of reporting on the views of “red state” citizens and Trump’s appeal than national outlets did.

Trump’s win, according to the researchers’ review of articles, prompted new debate over the merit of polls, new reporting practices intended to hear more diverse voices, and calls for “a more radical rethink” of campaign coverage. One press critic wrote in 2016, “When your reporting and storytelling toolbox is challenged by a norm-violating candidate, acknowledge it and innovate – fast.”

The national political media have indeed started to bust some routines, such as reluctance to prominently call out falsehoods. But it’s vital for the next three months that they address all areas of past failures, and that they rise to current new challenges, such as exposing the multiple efforts under way to suppress voting and rooting out how re-election considerations influence pandemic decisions. Many such articles have appeared. Three months is an eternity in the election process, though. A lot of time left to go wrong, and a lot on the line, because a 2020 repeat of 2016 wouldn’t be disastrous only for the press.

Some fans may have to throw out their favorite sports team t-shirt

THE Washington Redskins’ NICKNAME AND LOGO WERE “RETIRED” ON MONDAY. (Photo from team website)

Two popular fan choices to replace “Redskins” as the nickname of Washington’s NFL franchise are “Pigskins” and “Red Tails” (in honor of the World War II fighter pilots from Tuskegee, Alabama). I suggest owner Daniel Snyder make everyone happy with a compromise choice of “Pigtails.” (Please push your automated laugh track button now.)

Sports team nicknames can be funny, but the Washington franchise’s adherence to its 87-year-old name in the face of multiple protests in recent decades is not funny. Native American activists brand the name as racist. The franchise cites tradition and says the name pays tribute to the heritage of American Indians. But on Monday, Snyder, who once vowed he would never change the name, agreed to do so. It’s part of a national awakening about memorials and symbols that demean traditionally oppressed groups, but mostly it’s because some big-time corporations threatened to withdraw sponsorship of the Redskins.

I can attest that this is a media issue, also. Somewhere in the early 2000s, when I was sports editor of The Birmingham News, one of our regular high school football correspondents, Veto Roley, objected to use of the team nickname in stories about the Oneonta High School Redskins. I decided that Roley could omit the name from all of his bylined stories but that the name would continue to appear in other reporters’ stories because, well, that’s what the school called itself (and still does). It was a deliberated, judicious decision. And, I now realize, completely wrong.

“Redskins” has carried derogatory connotations for most of its history. The stated intent of an adopter doesn’t change that. I’m aware of polls that found most Native Americans do not find the name offensive, but I put more stock in a larger, more recent study by the University of Michigan that surveyed Native Americans who engage in cultural practices and concluded the opposite.

The NFL team’s decision doesn’t put the issue to bed. According to the MascotDB database, 123 high schools or colleges still use “Redskins” and 50 still use “Redmen.”

Roley, who is now a teacher in Mississippi and has Creek Indian ancestry, maintains his objection to the name “Redskins” today. He looks at it from the context of “an unrelenting war of physical and cultural genocide against Native Americans” from the time of Columbus through the middle of the 20thCentury.

But is it the media’s place to judge? Some already have. A Pew Research study in 2013, when the issue was again in the news, found about a dozen news outlets and a dozen individual journalists who had stopped using “Redskins.” More followed. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune was among the earliest – in the early 1990s. “My sports staff was not happy and criticism came from many corners,” Star-Tribune editor Tim McGuire wrote. In the city where the NFL’s ex-Redskins play, The Washington Post does not use the name on its op-ed pages but does use it in news stories.

OH GOSH. MAYBE JUST IGNORE EVERYTHING I WROTE IN THIS POST.

The debate for the sports world and its media is even broader than “Redskins.” Many advocates for Native Americans seek eradication of all nickname references to Native Americans, such as “Indians,” “Braves,” “Chiefs” and “Blackhawks.” According to a New York Times search of the MascotDB database, more than 2,200 high schools use Native American imagery in their names and mascots, in addition to several pro teams. That number has been trending downward, in part because some states have banned public schools’ use of “Redskins” or Indian-related names in general.

Roley says those more mainstream names aren’t slurs, but he finds some offshoots of the names – logos, Indian war dances, fans in stereotyped dress – to be disrespectful. “When we use caricatures and comical representations, we dishonor Native Americans,” he says. Pro teams have eliminated many of those offshoots, but the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Blackhawks said earlier this month they won’t change their nicknames. The Kansas City Chiefs haven’t commented. The Cleveland Indians, however, announced a review of their name.

Teams that continue to use Indian-related names are obligated to establish ties with today’s tribes and to educate the local community about them, Roley says. He commends Florida State, for instance, for its close relationship with the Seminole tribe. At the pro level, he says, franchises “can lead the way by educating the public about American Indian culture and history, not with poorly thought-out, slapped-together displays put in the corners of the stadiums, but with living history and museum-quality exhibits that are in the center of the stadium.”

University of Alabama professor Dr. Andrew C. Billings, a department colleague, co-wrote a book on this subject in 2018, “Mascot Nation: The Controversy over Native American Representations in Sports.”  The current discussions represent progress, he believes. The public attaches different degrees of acceptance to names, to images and to rituals. For his book, Billings surveyed 1,000 people and found that the Atlanta Braves’ nickname had the highest acceptance rate among Native American names, but acceptance was much lower for the fans’ Tomahawk Chop. So the debate for that franchise someday might be whether it has to ditch the name in order to ditch the chop, he says.

Billings thinks the best trigger for change might not be the Washington NFL franchise’s decision – because “Redskins” stands out in its overtness – but rather a decision by the Cleveland MLB franchise to drop its more common name of “Indians.”

As long as schools and pro franchises keep using such names, the media must reckon with their policy on use. Yes, team nicknames are a bread-and-butter part of a traditional sports story. But I can think of numerous instances of media foregoing certain facts as a matter of policy when publication of such facts causes harm to people. That is the case with “Redskins.” Ceasing to publish other Indian-related nicknames would seem like overzealous correctness and a lack of local pride. But it would be a meaningful act of respect for the cultural diversity of the nation. And maybe you’d have no regrets in 20 years.

“Changing the way we talk is not political correctness run amok. It reflects an admirable willingness to acknowledge others who once were barely visible to the dominant culture, and to recognize that something that may seem innocent to you may be painful to others.””

— Slate editor David Plotz on the decision to stop publishing "Redskins" (poynter.org, 2013)

Sometimes, media have to remind government who it works for (that’s you)

Imagine giving some money to an investment broker and when you later ask what the broker did with it, you’re told it’s none of your business. I see no difference between that and what agencies of state and local governments in Alabama do whenever they reject or ignore a citizen’s request for government records.

This happens too often in Alabama and elsewhere:

• In June, the City of Decatur denied open-records requests by multiple media outlets for disciplinary records of a police officer involved in a physical assault of a storeowner.

• In May, the environmental advocacy group GASP and the Environmental Defense Alliance filed a lawsuit against three State of Alabama agencies that have denied access to emails involving state opposition to a federal environmental cleanup of a North Birmingham neighborhood.

• Last year, the state Attorney General’s Office (one of the agencies sued by GASP) rejected a request by an Alabama Media Group reporter to see a contract signed with an industrial safety expert as part of a new plan to allow death-penalty executions by nitrogen gas.

• In 2017, WBRC-TV asked to see the $2.6 million contract between the City of Birmingham and a company called ShotSpotter that detects gunshots and pinpoints their location. The station also asked for data compiled by ShotSpotter. Three years later, the city still has not provided the data or even the contract.

• You’d think that in a pandemic, when smart behavior depends on having full and accurate information, that there’d be no secrets. But you’d be wrong, as shown by the Alabama Department of Public Health’s refusal of an AMG request to identify individual state-licensed nursing homes that have reported coronavirus cases.

In each of these cases, there is a legitimate public interest. And in each of these cases, the reason cited for rejection was an incorrect interpretation of Alabama’s open-records law. For more examples of valid records requests that were denied or ignored, read this alarming commentary written in July 2019 by WBRC News Director Shannon Isbell.

Government should be an open book. The access rights of the public spring from the public tax money that supports government, from the implicit pact made between voters and successful candidates during election campaigns, and from the open-records and open-meetings laws of every state.

Which brings up a big honkin’ problem in Alabama. Our open-records law is terrible.  It mandates that citizens can see all public writings – printed or electronic – unless a specific law says otherwise. So far, so good. The fatal flaws are these: no specified time period by which a government agency must respond to a records request; no appeal process (other than a court of law) if an agency turns down a request; and no clear definition of reasonable copying costs. So, governments in Alabama can quash the public’s rights by perpetual delay, or with outlandish fees, or by groundlessly denying a request knowing the requester probably doesn’t have the money to go to court.

Several members of the state media have said publicly that Alabama’s law is the nation’s worst. Some research says they’re right. University of Arizona professor David Cuillier examined open-records data from 2014 to 2017. The lowest compliance rate in the nation – at a ghastly 10 percent – belonged to Alabama.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Cam Ward of Alabaster and Rep. Chris Pringle of Mobile to fix the problems with the state’s law regrettably died in a legislative committee in February. The main opposition? Local governments, which claimed compliance with a stronger law would impose too much burden on the small staffs of some cities and counties. No one ever explained how other states manage to do it. And I’d like to note you’d never hear a small police or fire department claim that responding to the public is sometimes just too burdensome to do. 

All of this matters not merely because of concepts of ideal government. There are tangible consequences. Research such as Cuillier’s has shown that less openness correlates with more waste and fraud. So, what can be done to try to achieve greater access to records in Alabama or anywhere?

Journalists know the fundamentals: how to write an effective request; to continue to apply pressure; and to write publicly about rejections. They also know to push editorially and in person for better legislation, ideally with the support of vocal citizens. This is especially critical in Alabama.

Kyle Whitmire, state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group, says comparisons to other states show the “absurdity” of Alabama’s law. Whitmire has written valiantly about the situation. “The more we talk about this, the more likely we are to get a better law … We have to show why we need it,” he said in an interview.

He knows why. “Whenever public officials deny a records request, they automatically show people they’re hiding something.”

security camera video of a police assault on a decatur storeowner in june. the city is withholding officer disciplinary records and other records related to the incident.

I’d like to see news organizations pursue cases in court more often. This expensive tactic has fallen off significantly in recent years in Alabama and everywhere as news companies flounder financially. Increasingly, freedom-of-information lawsuits are brought by advocacy groups, such as GASP, rather than by media. Such suits are worthy no matter who launches them, but depending on single-issue advocacy groups likely means fewer suits than if media were regularly initiating actions on multiple fronts.

Dennis R. Bailey, general counsel for the Alabama Press Association, points to a hopeful sign: an increase in collaborative litigation among state media, which lowers cost for each outlet. In 2015, for instance, the APA represented multiple outlets in suing for release of Gov. Robert Bentley’s divorce records. In 2018, the Alabama Media Group, the Montgomery Advertiser and the Associated Press filed an eventually successful case against the Alabama Department of Corrections for release of the department’s execution protocol.

Going to court can be risky, of course, as there’s always the chance of ending up not just with a loss, but also with a precedent that makes access worse. Whitmire believes court often is “home-field advantage” for governments. But a demonstrated resolve to litigate would send statewide notice that the media are serious about their records requests, especially if they could persuade a judge or two to make offending governments pay the media’s attorney fees.

A new records law supported by selective but determined litigation would change the freedom-of-information climate in this state. Open government is essential to accountability, which is essential to good governance. It is highly insufficient to claim accountability can wait until the next election. Accountability needs to be constant, no matter how uncomfortable that makes some government officials. They need to remember it’s part of the deal. And the public, with help from the media, needs to insist on it. Because secrecy is the safe harbor of incompetence and corruption.

Execute journalists? Don't think it hasn't happened

THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE, AUG. 3, 2007

President Trump’s reported statement that journalists who publish leaked information should be “executed” is a more explicit and heinous extension of his repeated “enemy of the people” trope. It’s so far beyond the pale that the only necessary reaction is ridicule, then dismissal as nothing more than Trump venting berserkly in private*.

Except for the fact that it has happened.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that in the past 18 months, 14 journalists around the world have been murdered because they were journalists. UNESCO reports some that CPJ does not, including one as recently as this month. Some of the assassinations have suspected ties to governments officials, others to political or criminal groups. The highest-profile execution tied to government orders in recent years was that of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 2018. Journalist killings are especially frequent in Mexico and Russia.

But this does not happen in the United States. Except for the fact that it does. Just some of the cases worth remembering:

In June 2018, a man angry over stories published about him entered the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, and shot five newsroom employees to death. 

In June 1984, white supremacists used automatic weapons to kill Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg in the driveway of his home. Berg’s liberal views had incensed the group.

Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles died after a man detonated dynamite planted under Bolles’ car in June 1976. Court testimony connected the man to a prominent Arizona businessman who had been the subject of several investigative articles by Bolles. At the time of the car bomb, Bolles was working on a story about prominent people with ties to organized crime. After the killing, Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) and other journalists from around the country formed a team to successfully finish the reporting that Bolles had started. IRE, which now gives an annual investigative award named for Bolles, explained the point of the collaboration: “Even if you kill a reporter, you can’t kill the story.” 

In August 2007, an assailant shot and killed Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland, California, Post, as he walked to his office. The hit man worked for a fringe Black Muslim group that Bailey was investigating. My friend and former colleague Mike Oliver knew Bailey from their time together at the Oakland Tribune. Oliver served as regional editor for the Tribune and other Bay Area publications. Bailey moved from the Tribune to the Post just months before he was killed.

“Reporters went out to have justice brought forth.”

— Mike Oliver

“It was shocking,” said Oliver, now a senior managing producer and columnist for the Alabama Media Group. “One of the worst things you can think of as a journalist is being confronted by an angry source with a shotgun.” The suspect group made death threats to other journalists. The Tribune hired police officers as constant security. “It was a little bit scary,” Oliver recalled. “It was a reminder that people (were) out to hurt us.”

The journalistic response from Bay Area journalists was much like that which followed the Bolles killing: More coverage, not less. Staff from different organizations created The Chauncey Bailey Project, which uncovered details about the assassination and the criminal activities of the Black Muslim group. “Reporters went out to have justice brought forth,” Oliver said.

Look, outrageous statements by Donald Trump are not going to cause a spate of journalist killings. What’s troublesome, though, is that such sentiments from the president create a climate hostile to the news media – not like those in some countries where journalists are assassination targets, but a climate in which journalists are more frequently physically assaulted, or verbally abused, or threatened with harm, or arrested, or sued in court, or denied access to information. Indeed, that’s where we are now.

* Trump is not alone. In a private, taped conversation in 1971 about obstacles to winning the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon suggested to “kill all the reporters.” In 1972, his aides actually discussed possibly killing a particularly troublesome investigative reporter.