by Glynn Wilson

Walking into the local Food World grocery store the other day to stock up on Yuengling for the week, I was a bit surprised to see a representative from the Birmingham News hawking newspapers just inside the door.

I guess the declining circulation trend is hitting home on the local level even though the News now has a monopoly on the local daily newspaper market since the Post Herald went out of business last year.

The guy was fairly knowledgeable about the circulation problem, saying the News has fallen to only a 10 percent penetration in the metropolitan area market.

News organizations of all stripes are trying to deal with this problem, and I’m always fascinated to see what the pencil pushers or “green eyeshades” - or should we call them “data crunchers” these days - come up with to try reversing the slide.
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Some days it’s just no fun to be from Alabama.

While I would rather sleep through this latest global warming/weather controversy, I guess it’s my duty to let you in on the scoop.

As I prepared my usual mid-day breakfast on Friday, the folks at ABC 33/40 got my attention when weatherman James Spann took a good chunk of the mid-day news broadcast to explain why he should not be fired for saying on his blog that there is no such thing as wacky weather due to global warming.

While I normally pay only passing attention to the local news, this got my attention, because it turns out a full-blown controversy of meteorologists had made the infamous Drudge Report this morning.

Even the British newspaper the Independent ran a story about it, so how could I ignore it?

What Spann actually said is quite unusual in the local MSM objectivity business, and makes me think perhaps there is a political and economic backdrop to this controversy.

Here’s part of what he said:
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With several country music legends set to testify before the Federal Communications Commission during a hearing in Nashville on media ownership rules this week, the agency might feel as if it’s in the House of Blues instead of the Grand Ole Opry.

Porter Wagoner, George Jones, Dobie Gray, Naomi Judd and Craig Wiseman are among the singer/songwriters who have tentatively agreed to testify Monday. Instead of singing a conservative country song, however, they will be singing the blues about the impact of the Republican-led FCC’s rules allowing big media companies to own more radio and TV stations in markets across America.

If the country music crowd would listen more to the Dixie Chicks than Toby Keith they would have a better chance of influencing American politics and government in a way that would protect their rights.

FCC to Hear Country Stars’ Tales of Woe on Media Ownership Rules