Guest Column
by Roger Shuler

Is there hope for Alabama’s largest newspaper?

The Birmingham News opines today about the Justice Department report issued this week showing political considerations played a role in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. The firings were “weird,” the News determines. No, it seems clear, the firings were corrupt. But our local metro daily doesn’t want to go there.

Where else does the News not want to go? To “Don Siegelman Has Been Right-All-Along-Land.”

The News acknowledges — and it appears to pain them — that the report raises questions not only about the unlawful treatment of some prosecutors but also about the treatment of those who were prosecuted. That would include Siegelman, Alabama’s former Democratic governor who was prosecuted and convicted in a case that was dripping with conflicts of interest and political motivations from those in the Bush Justice Department:

Consider: If some U.S. attorneys were fired for not prosecuting people that suited Republican interests, were other U.S. attorneys able to keep their jobs by prosecuting the “right people”?

There were U.S. attorneys who were considered “mediocre” who didn’t end up on the firing list, apparently because they had political favor. That begs the question: What kind of cases did they bring that kept them in good standing with the party? Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman would certainly love to argue that U.S. Attorney Leura Canary kept her job in Montgomery by prosecuting him.

Were some U.S. attorneys able to keep their jobs by prosecuting the “right people?” The News, laughably, seems to be pondering this question for the first time today. Where have you been folks?

And the paper doesn’t want to mention that the entire Justice Department scandal, to a great extent, has its roots in Alabama, not only because of biased and unqualified U.S. attorneys Leura Canary in Montgomery and Alice Martin in Birmingham but because of Karl Rove’s deep connections to Alabama, which started with his campaign efforts in state-court races in the 1990s.

Finally, the News would have us believe that Siegelman is fighting a lonely battle to show that Canary kept her job in Montgomery because of her willingness to bring a bogus case against him. In fact, Siegelman hasn’t been lonely at all. Harper’s magazine, The New York Times, 60 Minutes, and Time magazine are just a few of the media outlets that have reported extensively on the issue. And the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has spent considerable effort investigating the case, issuing a subpoena for Rove to testify about his possible role in the Siegelman prosecution — a subpoena with which Rove steadily has refused to comply.

Will the News get off its collective duff and start investigating a story that is right under its nose? We won’t hold our breath. But today’s editorial indicates the blinders might be loosening just a little:

It’s true, U.S. attorneys are political appointees and can be fired at will. But their job is to serve the public’s interest, not a political party’s interest. If they can be fired because they don’t prosecute people of the opposite party, or because they prosecute people of their own party, how can the public really trust that cases are being brought or are being dropped for the right reasons?

“For department officials to recommend the removal of U.S. attorneys even in part because they do or do not have political support undermines the public’s confidence that Department of Justice prosecutive decisions are based on the facts and the law and not on political considerations,” the report said.

Simply put, U.S. attorneys can’t play favorites with the cases that come into their offices and expect to have any credibility with the public. The same rule applies to the Justice Department.

Are scales beginning to fall from a few eyes down on Fourth Avenue North in Birmingham?

Originally published in the Legal Schnauzer Website under the headline:
Will The Birmingham News Remain Clueless to the End?

by Glynn Wilson
Editor and Publisher

If Regina Nummy, the director of Roebuck-Hawkins Park, has not already resigned her position — for her ignorant order telling Birmingham city workers to illegally excavate wetlands without a permit and to remove a dam on a Village Creek spring pool — she should be fired immediately.

Glynn Wilson

A yellow-crowned night heron feeding on the section of Village Creek that intersects the Roebuck Golf Course, just down stream from the destroyed dam.

It may take the discovery phase of a lawsuit and depositions to find out who came up with the dimwitted idea to remove the dam in the first place, as well as how the order was carried out, since city officials have now clammed up and are not talking in expectation of a lawsuit.

What is clear is that what Ms. Nummy told The Birmingham News about the need to remove the dam to prevent damage to the tennis courts due to flooding is just a lie. What is not clear is why she would concoct such a story. But ignorance is no defense in a court of law.

What we know is this.

Last Friday, Ms. Nummy somehow obtained a work order for a crane operator to drive into a protected wetland that was home to the largest population of endangered watercress darters on the planet. Without a federal or state permit or permission of any kind, the heavy equipment operator removed a beaver dam built on top of a small man-made dam that helped the Roebuck Springs pool hold water in part of Village Creek.

Over the weekend, most of the water ran out of the pond downstream through a drainage pipe leading under the Roebuck tennis courts. The shock of all the water rushing out of the pool forced at least 1,000 darters, most likely way more than that, to hide in the grass, where they died of suffocation.

There is no doubt that this constitutes a blatant violation of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, and the Locust Fork News-Journal is calling on the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alabama Department of Conservation to move with all deliberate speed both to restore the habitat and to hold the responsible parties legally accountable.

This story is not just about some little rare fish. The destruction of its habitat will no doubt have a ripple effect throughout the ecosystem and have a negative impact on bird populations as well.

In recent times this independent online news organization has focused more on national issues and crimes of the Bush administration, specifically on the Bush Justice Department’s political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, than local stories such as this. But we have extensive experience covering science and the environment going all the way back to the 1980s.

And this particular spot holds a special place in our hearts. It is a remarkable place to experience the wonders of nature in the very center of an urban area.

For the past four years, I have joined other wildlife photographers to keep a watchful eye on the special population of yellow-crowned night herons that nest in the area around the Roebuck Golf Course along Village Creek. We have taken hundreds of photographs of these beautiful creatures during that time frame.

And right now, in addition to being concerned about the endangered fish, we are also concerned that the destruction of this dam and the habitat for the fish will have a negative impact on the bird populations in the area.

In addition to the herons, there are often wood ducks feeding in the area as well as great egrets, kingfishers, red-shouldered hawks, great blue herons, and red-winged blackbirds.

In fact, my photograph of a red-winged blackbird on Village Creek just downstream from the destroyed dam was recently chosen for an educational poster showing the 50 most common bird species in Alabama. Of 50 pictures chosen, submitted by birders from all over the state, nine or 10 are mine.

You can see a picture of the poster and order free copies from this link on the Legacy Partners for Environmental Education Website.

We would also like to see the local television news shows and the local newspapers do more to get to the bottom of this environmental tragedy.

For the past three days in a row, The Birmingham News environmental reporter has published the same lie about the tennis courts flooding, apparently by taking information on the phone from the office and not actually visiting the site in person.

Any empirical observation by any lay person will show that the tennis courts have not flooded and have not been damaged by flooding. It is not enough for a news organization to take the word of a city official in a case like this. There is a responsibility to get off the phone, away from the e-mail, and out of the office to go look at the scene. Anything less is irresponsible journalism.

This just in from Scott Horton.

Former Birmingham News ace reporter Brett Blackledge was recently hired by Ron Fournier, head of the AP’s Washington Bureau.

The AP’s Washington coverage has demonstrated a clear-cut GOP slant ever since Fournier took over, and the Blackledge hire is no doubt designed to help lock that in. Fournier’s key “inside source” and adviser is none other than Karl Rove.

This is now being reported by the independent Talking Points Memo:

Universal Theory of Bamboozlement

Earlier today we noted the possible role of AP Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier is turning the AP’s campaign coverage into “complete crap.”

Now from the just released Tillman Report, it seems Fournier was also one of the reporters exchanging emails the day of Tillman’s death with Karl Rove of all people - and according to the report at least, offering advice on how to handle the story.

“Keep up the fight,” Fournier tells Rove.

What fight? Objective journalism?

Looks like Rove’s Alabama Republican news buddy has hit the big time : )

Connecting the dots from government spying to private profit to keeping you in the dark…

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

Did you wake up Friday morning and turn on your computer and notice that your connection to the Internet was running a lot slower than usual?

Well, you were not alone.

Have you seen one single solitary news organization in your community or in this nation that provided a report on what was going on?

No you say?

Welcome to the future of news.

We reached a critical turning point this week in who controls the information you will be able to get for the rest of your lives. And guess what, you are the loser.

And your Senators in Washington are as responsible as the president and the telephone and cable companies that want to control all the information and avoid lawsuits to boot.

Senate Passes Bush’s Spy Bill With Telecom Immunity

But does that news bother the editorial writers at the state and nation’s big newspapers? Apparently not.

As long as ATandT keeps those Web ads coming to the Websites of the corporate chain newspapers, they will just continue to lay off more reporters and crank out the local PR - and laugh all the way to the bank.

To get a glimpse of where this is headed, here’s a sampling of headlines Sunday from some of the biggest Internet Service Providers in the U.S.

At Charter.net, my ISP, the headlines were:

Photos prompt Ms. America scandal

Inside The Secret Britney Video Shoot

At Att.net, the site of the phone giant ATandT, broken up by the Reagan Justice Department but put back together by the Bush administration under the control of Southwest Bell out of Texas (Bush country), here’s what’s news:

Create the perfect burger

6 dating moves that show you’re interested

At Verizon.net, videos are popular, such as this one:

Step Brothers - video

At Cox.com, they like to report on themselves a lot:

Cox Ranked Highest Among Business Data Providers in J.D. Power and Associates Study

At Comcast.net, the lead programmer must be a Stones fan:

Rolling Stone Leaves Wife for Teenager

An exhaustive search, even among the government sponsored techie magazines online, found very little to explain what happened this week or even hint at the Rubicon we crossed.

At least I found this headline, but if you think guys in business suits with some technical training are the journalists of the future, let’s hope this guy from the Washington Technology blog is not the model for it.

If you haven’t already, it’s time to climb aboard the Web 2.0 trend

Of course like every other Bush appointee to high office over the past seven and a half years, the FCC’s Michael Martin talks a good game about standing up for freedom - while doing everything behind the scenes to destroy it. Look at the Bush FCC’s statement on Net Neutratily:

“The Commission, under Title I of the Communications Act, has the ability to adopt and enforce the net neutrality principles it announced in the Internet Policy Statement. The Supreme Court reaffirmed that the Commission ‘has jurisdiction to impose additional regulatory obligations under its Title I ancillary jurisdiction to regulate interstate and foreign communications.’ Indeed, the Supreme Court specifically recognized the Commission’s ancillary jurisdiction to impose regulatory obligations on broadband Internet access providers.” (From Broadband Deployment Notice of Inquiry - April 16, 2007)

The availability of the Internet has had a profound impact on American life. This network of networks has fundamentally changed the way we communicate. It has increased the speed of communication, the range of communicating devices and the variety of platforms over which we can send and receive information.

As Congress has noted, “the rapidly developing array of Internet . . . services available to individual Americans represent an extraordinary advance in the availability of educational and informational resources to our citizens.”

The Internet also represents “a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity.”

In addition, the Internet plays an important role in the economy, as an engine for productivity growth and cost savings.

But it is up to us to provide the “but….”

The but is that all of that is well and good, let everyone in the country publish their own blog, but don’t expect the programmers and business suits who want to make all the money off the Web really allow people to access all of those blogs. When the traffic level picks up, they now have the power to muzzle traffic to a Web site like this one - and not have to worry about being sued in court for doing it.

How is that possible, you say? And what does that have to do with the spying bill, telecom vote in the Senate this week?

Well, you see, the telecom giants have to be able to spy on your Web use to figure out how to grab all the traffic and advertising revenue. That’s the bottom line.

Newspapers are already losing print circulation to people who have learned how to connect to the Internet and switched to reading on the Web on their computer screens. Newspaper managers hate blogs and especially craigslist.org, the free classified ad service with the simple text interface. It’s so easy to use and effective that most people who are Web savvy have switched to using it to buy and sell things and find a place to live.

So newspapers are having a hard time selling classified ads anymore, a staple of their revenue stream for the past 100 years. What will replace that revenue? How will they survive?

Will the telecom ad money save them? Or is that just a short term mechanism of survival for them, while the telecoms figure out everyone’s habits so they can corner the market?

Like everything else in a democracy, it is ultimately going to be up to the people to elect candidates who will stand up for them. There has never been a more critical election than the one coming up in November. Have the two major parties selected the right candidates?

I have my doubts. But it’s not like there is a viable third party alternative.

Perhaps the only hope we have is for people in the know to keep up the pressure on the candidate of “hope,” Barack Obama. He broke one campaign promise already and voted for the FISA bill this week. This is a troubling sign.

There were a few Senators who had the courage and the intelligence to stand against the bill. We published the best of their speeches here. If you want to know what’s really going on, you should go there and read them. We may be the only news organization in American to publish them.

We know the big newspapers largely ignored them.

And it is a sure bet that you would not see a word about them on the big bad home pages of the future. Do you think for a second that ATandT or the cable companies would publish a story that says they should be sued, a story that directly attacks their ability to continue building an economic and information monopoly in the future?

Of course not. The phone companies and cable companies have no stake in the First Amendment. They own it. The freedom belongs to newspapers, they believe, but they simply will not stand up and fight for that right online.

So now that the debate is over and all the latest spying software was loaded onto every computer server on Friday, the day after the FISA bill was signed exempting them from legal liability, the next fight is on the way.

There are thousands of programmers working for corporations right now trying to figure out how to shut us up and shut us down. There are a few programmers who take sides with us in the debate over Net Neutrality. But there are fewer and fewer jobs for them outside of corporate America.

The bottom line is this. We have this freedom to publish now, but it may not be around much longer.

Where do you stand? Do you want to depend on ATandT for your news?

If not, maybe it’s time you considered taking a pro-active step to support the independent Web Press.