Category Archives: Media

Godspeed, Mike

Tomberlin and Rickey at Bon Voyage event, May 2012Today’s collection of posts begin with wishing Godspeed to Birmingham News business reporter Michael Tomberlin as he returns to active military duty this week. He serves as a major of the Alabama National Guard’s 167th Theater Sustainment Command 167th Infantry Battalion and is being redeployed to Afghanistan later this summer. During his deployment in 2008, He maintained a blog on al.com called Yellowhammering Afghanistan chronicling his experiences.

His unit most recently participated in the re-dedication of the Rainbow Viaduct in downtown Birmingham on Memorial Day weekend. The image above of Tomberlin and Birmingham Business Alliance senior vice president for communications Dave Rickey was taken during a send-off event for Tomberlin held at Avondale Brewing Company on May 29, 2012.

Tomberlin returns to his news desk next spring.

Cuts at The News formally announced, grassroots effort begins

Newer Birmingham News-logoThis morning individuals were at offices of Advance Publications titles here in Alabama and in New Orleans learned whether they would be retained, given the opportunity to re-apply for a new position or let go as part of a restructuring announced late last month.

Weld for Birmingham first shared last night via an update to a post shared on Sunday about when employees at The Birmingham News would learn about their future with the two new companies set to form in the fall. This morning local NPR affiliate WBHM started a Storify thread to capture reactions from the digital sphere – both locally and nationally.

David Griner, himself a former intern at the Birmingham Post-Herald, Birmingham’s former afternoon daily closed by what is now known as The E.W. Scripps Company in 2005 and current vice president/director of digital content at Birmingham-based communications firm Luckie & Co., announced earlier this afternoon that he’d created a Twitter account (@ALNewsJobs) and hashtag (#alnewsjobs) to help assist those affected by the cuts locate and secure new jobs.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/ALNewsJobs/status/212598913453146114″]

UPDATE: A Facebook group or brand page is also in the works has now launched for the grassroots effort.

While the official release – available via al.com – did not provide specifics on how many would not be retained, information being shared via social media states that at least 60 positions were cut in the newsroom here in Birmingham. It was just as severe at the Times-Picayune, where approximately 200 positions are set to be eliminated once the changes are in place this fall.

NOTE: The story has been updated to reflect that Griner interned at the paper in the 1990s and was not employed there at the time it closed in 2005.

The Radio Carousel: Rock 99.5 is no more; enter The Vibe

995 vibe splash imageLong time listeners to Rock 99.5, a.k.a. WZRR-FM, recently learned their classic rock station was changing formats to CHR. The folks at Radio Insight first reported the change late last week after they noticed the site was down. As they point out via their format change watch list, it’s part of an annual trend – one that’s shows there’s not necessarily any set formula either.

There are folks online attempting to organize an Occupy 99.5 the VIBE fan page on Facebook, though the Bring the Rock back to Rock 99.5 fan page also exists. The pages have 115 fans and 201 fans respectively as of 8:15 AM Thursday morning (January 5). There’s also an interesting video on YouTube posted by BababoeyBHM – who incidentally just joined the video-sharing service the same day the piece was posted.

According to comments on both pages, comments being left on the VIBE’s page not supporting the format change are being deleted almost as soon as the entry is made.

This is the station’s fourth format change overall since its launch in 1977.

UPDATE: Reports suggest We Have Signal may cease production

We Have Signal logoUPDATE 1 4:35 p.m., 6/28/2011: The show’s producers have posted a note on Facebook this afternoon announcing that next season will go ahead as planned starting in October. For those not on Facebook, we’ve published the note over on Timetable.

Early this morning the Montgomery Advertiser posted a piece to their website that announced the pending closure of Alabama Public Television’s Montgomery bureau at the end of July due to budget cuts at the state level. The report points out that APT will be making reductions statewide to deal with the $1.3 million lost in funding.

One of the losses of significance to folks here in Birmingham is the announcement that “We Have Signal” will potentially cease production. The musical performance series launched in late 2008 and is recorded here in Birmingham exclusively at The Bottletree in Avondale. The show has won Southeast Emmys in 2009 & 2010 and had been nominated again this year.

According to the show’s fan page on Facebook, episodes were shot this spring and scheduled to air this fall. We’re looking into whether these new episodes will be aired. We’re also waiting to see an official statement from the show’s producers about their plans for the future. According to a tweet earlier today and an email exchange with the show’s producers, the first they learned about the potential situation was from this morning’s story in the Advertiser.

Pay for the paper at the box with a credit card

New Birmingham News boxes downtown. acnatta/FlickrFolks who pick up their copies of The Birmingham News from one of the newspaper boxes in front their headquarters don’t have to necessarily have change anymore.

At least three of the boxes located at the corner of 20th Street and 4th Avenue North now accept credit cards.

It’s not necessarily a new concept; the folks at AdAge wrote about the expanding trend last summer pointing out that USA Today had devices on boxes in airports for several years. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Chicago Tribune are other publications that have tried them. They’ve even been tried out in Juneau, AK.

We’re still hoping for a digital newsstand someday though…

Photo: New Birmingham News boxes downtown. acnatta/Flickr

The Magic City through NPR’s lens

NPR & 90.3 WBHM logosBirmingham, AL and the surrounding metro area have received a great deal of attention in recent months on NPR. Area member stations, specifically WBHM, helped make many people aware of what happened here and throughout the state of Alabama and continue to share information about the recovery efforts currently underway.

NPR Music recently did a piece on Gip’s Place in Bessemer, calling it “a dream” and making several local fans of the music venue happy about its getting national attention. The local blues spot had been the focus of several local pieces recently including one in B-Metro Magazine last year.

Most notably, the NPR series The State of the Re:Union (created by Al Letson as an entry in the Public Radio Talent Quest back in 2007) recently visited Alabama’s Magic City to take a look at how things are going – and perhaps to break through a few perceptions as well. The episode is currently available for download from the series’ website. The site also has short documentaries filmed during the visit, like this piece about – you guessed it – Gip’s Place.

Knowledge abundant in The Magic City

Birmingham was recently included in a Forbes Magazine list of the nation’s biggest brain magnets – it’s on the list at number six.

While that result shocked some (maybe some of the same folks still in shock about UAB’s NCAA tournament selection) visitors to BhamWiki really weren’t. The volunteer-built virtual archive of the city’s history (whose creator John Morse is still an occasional contributor to this site) is celebrating its fifth anniversary today.

mental floss logoAnother reason to not necessarily doubt the ranking is the success of mental_floss magazine. Yesterday’s announcement of its sale to magazine publisher Felix Dennis was the first time many learned (or realized) that the magazine is based in The Magic City (their offices are on Southside) or that one of the founders, Will Pearson, is from Hoover.

Neither one of these fine establishments are going anywhere anytime soon, but that’s no reason to not go ahead and check them out.