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I thought about writing some long drawn out explanation about why The Terminal will not be covering the Langford trial… we’ll see how long this actually ends up.
I actually got stole the idea from Andrew Huff, editor of fellow hyperlocal blog Gapers Block and how they handled coverage of the Olympic bid in Chicago. My reasons are somewhat similar – everybody else is going to be covering it – a lot.
We already know that NBC 13 will be tweeting from the trial. Then there’s the possibility that Birmingham Weekly will do the same. All four of our local television networks will no doubt provide extensive in depth analysis of the situation and we haven’t even talked about The Birmingham News, The Birmingham Times, local talk radio and other bloggers. Overkill may be a kind word for what’s about to happen.
It would also help if there were three or four of me to be able to truly do it justice.
Maybe it’s not relevant to not cover a major trial. Maybe it’s more relevant to remind folks that regardless of what happens with this trial, the work of moving the City of Birmingham forward continues. I do realize that we live in a city and region that loves politics and drama, so we’ll see if taking this approach was appropriate.
Now, with all of this being said, there is one possible way to convince me to go back on my word (though even then, it will depend on how it’s proposed): One or two people would need to volunteer to attend the conference and cover it for The Terminal.
If there is anyone who thinks that they would be willing to do daily updates about the trial, then drop me a line at andre@bhamterminal.com and we’ll talk about you doing just that. Realize that any attempt to get a hold of me today may be thwarted thanks to BarCamp Nashville (great job so far guys) and the National Preservation Conference (same goes for you too), so don’t be discouraged if I don’t respond immediately.
We’ll see you on Monday morning!
André Natta is the stationmaster for bhamterminal.com.
The inboxes at The Terminal received several emails late yesterday afternoon, a couple of them including the responses received by two citizens after they sent in their concerns to Mayor Langford’s office about 
So we’re going to look to an old slogan for the city for some inspiration for a new series of submissions about The Magic City. The 1961 “It’s Nice to Have You in Birmingham” campaign is one that still rings in the ears of residents in the region both young and old. We’d like for you to take a new look at that statement – to really think about who you like to see every day in Birmingham and why. We’re hoping that it will help us develop a mosaic of careers, backgrounds, personalities and missions that best exemplify the best thing about Birmingham – its people.
Well, at least we're talking about it
“Nobody is trying to deny the seriousness of getting this under control, but does it have to be on a billboard?”
– Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford
Yes, as a matter of fact Larry, it does.
But apparently making Jefferson County residents aware of a syphilis outbreak is more of a detriment to our efforts for attracting new businesses into the region than a necessity to make sure that it does not become worse than it already is. In case you didn’t see Saturday’s Birmingham News story, two of our elected leaders feel as though bus advertisements calling attention to the fact that we have the #1 concentration of syphilis cases in the United States were portraying a bad image for the region (among other things).
While they are only removing ads announcing the outbreak off of the sides of buses, it takes away a valuable tool available to the Jefferson County Department of Health in this battle of educating the public, one that they should be commended for. It was doing what it was supposed to do – catching the attention of those that saw the signs even if only for a few seconds at a time.
If there is anyone that understands the importance of catching the attention of people in short, simple sound bites, it is the current mayor of the city of Birmingham. Mayor Langford provides just enough information to pique our interest and then he moves on to the next 6 or 7 things on his agenda. We stay just confused and bombarded long enough for the next idea to be planted and then the questions that need to be raised never are. It’s a shame, since some conversation may actually make some of these ideas better. In this case it’s a real shame that he doesn’t realize that the Department of Heath is simply taking a page out of his play book.
He’s done something again, only this time it’s something that could become a bigger issue if not handled properly. I’d like to know if he and Commissioner Fine-Collins plan to have the health department remove the billboards and television ads as well? If so, we’re going to use taxpayer dollars to remove ads that were partially paid for by taxpayer dollars trying to educate the taxpayers about a serious issue — like the logic?
Maybe he has a secret plan to use that bully pulpit that mayors possess to make sure that more people are aware…
Maybe.
Maybe spending taxpayer dollars to sweep one of our regions issues under the rug could be better spent making sure that we dealt with the outbreak appropriately, making sure that everyone was aware of the issue.
The problem with both of those solutions is that they sound too logical.
As a city recognized as a national leader in medical research, maybe the idea of making people aware of the issue constitutes our area hospitals and medical leaders doing the job that they are best known for. And it’s not like the ads haven’t had an effect, it has encouraged more people to go in and be tested for symptoms.
We can’t call the kettle black without making sure that we air all of our dirty laundry as well. We’d actually had a story prepared about the outbreak more than a month ago; however we were waiting for a list of current solutions that were being undertaken to be completed before putting it up on the site. We felt as though that was most important – making sure that solutions were presented. Unfortunately, most of us are only now writing about the issue because Mr. Langford and Ms. Fine-Collins finally gave us a reason to do so.
So we decided to run the story this morning (if you didn’t come here directly from the post, head on over to the Newsstand to take a look). Even if you feel as though this issue cannot hit you personally, it is important enough to the overall health of our region to take a good, hard look at it and what can be done to assist with handling it.
So maybe recent stories about Birmingham’s potential are just not powerful enough to overcome this outbreak as selling points, at least in the eyes of our city’s chief executive. But I think I’d rather have folks coming in to join this transplant in a movement to make the city a better place than have them wonder why we hadn’t accepted the situation and admitted to it up front — completely.
André Natta is the managing editor of The Terminal.
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Posted in Birmingham, Commentary
Tagged AL, Alabama, Andre Natta, Birmingham, editorial, epidemic, Jefferson County, Larry Langford, national, outbreak, ranking, syphilis