Design Review Committee disapproves replacement "Sign"
Preserve Jazz Festival announces sabbatical for 2015
It’s amazing when you get a chance to look back at what you’ve written on a particular topic over time.
I decided that before I sat down to share my thoughts about City Stages that I’d look back at some earlier pieces both here and over on Dre’s Ramblings. I figured I’d share links to some of the more editorial pieces with you here – just in case:
City Stages is here… well? | My Birmingham, June 13, 2007
City Stages 2007 – some thoughts for the future | My Birmingham, June 18, 2007
Birmingham’s largest block party | My Birmingham, June 20, 2008
Last year I said I was looking forward to this year’s festival, assuming that they would build on last year’s critical success with the launch of a social media-influenced marketing campaign.
Then I learned on Tuesday morning that the corporate ticket sales had been budgeted to be close to the same levels as last year (in the midst of an economic recession), leading to the last minute $250,000 request to the City of Birmingham. That, coupled with the virtual nonexistence of money in the Natta household, led me to decide that I will be working on projects and enjoying the air conditioning at Shift WorkSpace this weekend (and hopefully taking in some of the Secret Stages show at Speakeasy on Saturday evening) instead of making the trek down to Linn Park.
I believe George McMillan when he says that there are no more sacred cows in terms of the festival and that he is not sure of its future. How far will they go to secure a future is still to be determined.
The town hall meeting coordinated by Catalyst in November 2006 provided some good ideas for build upon for City Stages in the future, especially when you consider other festivals (even though this is old in terms of reference points).
I’d argue that people need to bring suggestions for real solutions to the table before completely bashing the festival and saying it needs to go. Here’s mine:
City Stages gets moved to the Railroad Reservation Park starting next year. There would be four stages – two at each end of the park. The Cultural Furnace that folks would like to see housed in the current Alabama Power steam plant could be integrated into the planning in later years, including an office for the organization to work out of year round. It would allow CS to consider approaching Alagasco for the use of their parking lots in the surrounding area as festival space – most likely for things like video game competitions, smaller local stages and an arts and crafts section. You might even be able to scare a spoken word/comedy and jazz stage around out there too.
The festival would be contained in a 12-block area between 14th and 20th Streets, allowing for folks to access downtown Birmingham by car using local streets and taking advantage of a large, open space and a pretty cool view of the city center skyline. No, currently there may not be enough shade for a June festival, but there are no sacred cows anymore. You could even move it to the same weekend as the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in September and make it into a huge event for the region.
We need to actually see what happens once folks get used to this new City Stages and not make another major change just because we are panicking
Now it’s only an idea and of course there would still be issues logistically, but it’s an idea.
I’m not necessarily ready to see City Stages go away and I’d love to hear what some of your ideas are.
You can post them in the comments section below. I’m also willing to invite a few folks over to Shift on Monday evening to share your thoughts about this year’s festival and what it could be in the future. If you’re interested, send an email to info@bhamterminal.com or comment below and if enough folks are interested, we’ll announce a time for Monday night.
If you’re going, enjoy the weekend and the music!
André Natta is the managing editor of bhamterminal.com.
Reading into the Alabama Media Group plans (a lot)
It finally clicked in my head late last night, essentially changing the focus of what I thought had been a pretty solid piece about my thoughts regarding the reduction of The Birmingham News‘ print schedule. I’ll apologize if what follows seems a bit dry. I promise if you follow along, the potential outcomes (even if currently unlikely) become very interesting.
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around exactly what these changes would mean locally – and not just from the perspective of layoffs and the resulting competition. I kept trying to figure out some other potential results of the shift in focus. The News will still be the go to source for legal notices; their maintaining a print schedule allows them to meet the requirements for the state’s revised legal notices law; it passed back in March (after being introduced in February) and was explained (for the benefit of Alabama Press Association members) in a video later on during the session. The new rules took effect on June 1. By the way, the revised law does not seem to be easily interpreted for online-only publications at this time. Final passage appears to be a compromise for those organizations looking to go online only and those still wanting the notices to appear in the paper.
The new media organization will also be able to maintain its full APA active membership since it will meet their criteria:
What The News will not be is a daily newspaper. You may be laughing right now saying, “Of course not, silly André. They’ll only be printing three days a week.” Funny you should bring that up; current FCC regulations define a daily newspaper as any publication printing four or more days a week. Yeah, that was a nice tidbit of information to learn. This becomes important since it means that the new Alabama Media Group could be allowed to be bought by a local television station down the road and not be in violation of current rules prohibiting a daily newspaper and a local television station having the same owner – rules that are currently scheduled to be kept in place when they’re up for review.
It becomes even better when you think of it in another way – this new organization could buy or launch a television station of its own if it wanted to and not have to worry about FCC regulations. Those broadcast geeks reading – the exemption being considered only applies as a blanket approach to the top 20 designated market areas, or DMAs, in the country; we’re #40. Considering the possibilities that exist now thanks to the available digital television spectrum, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched of an idea. While the antennas may need to remain atop Red Mountain, the studio wouldn’t, leading to a creative spin on the efforts undertaken in Michigan earlier this year – one making the stories and information available as more than just another digital voice. It’s probably why I don’t see them using any of their existing properties if they don’t stay in the building on 22nd St. & 4th Ave. N. and probably going to Southside.
This all only makes sense to me because I’ve heard several people refer to The Birmingham News in recent months as a multimedia company – one that could turn to streaming or digital video and audio to augment its print and online written product. If it wasn’t already in their minds before – “You’re welcome.”
It wouldn’t quite be a return to the days of the media powerhouses of more than thirty years ago and the fear of lack of diversity of voices associated with it. This is partially because of things like WordPress and Twitter making sites like this one possible. It still wouldn’t lessen the blow of print reduction though and it wouldn’t necessarily guarantee it was reaching more people – things I still believe are possible unfortunately – at least in the short term.
It is something that could potentially diversify revenue streams – since at the end of the day, journalists have to eat. Even if none of it comes to be, you’ve now been given a glimpse into the mind of one of the folks trying to figure out how this new age of journalism will work.
There’s one last side note I’d like the folks up in my hometown to consider as they prepare to have their teams in Alabama and New Orleans undertake this new approach. The Newhouse Foundation is an extremely valuable part of the journalism ecosystem – particularly in the northeastern United States. The philanthropic organization provides scholarships to those studying journalism and is a major supporter of Syracuse’s school of public communications. While it is not part of the company per se, it would be nice for it to consider stepping outside of its unwritten rules (as it has on other occasions for extremely worthwhile causes) and making contributions to efforts that ensure the passage of information from journalists to those who starve for it. It’s not like there’s currently enough adequate Internet coverage.
Perhaps a significant gift to our city’s financially strapped library system would be a great place to start. This would help provide venues for Internet access to those who don’t have it at home and space for community gatherings with all of those “one man bands” that are about to be unleashed into these communities.
I’m constantly told I’m an optimistic person when it comes to the future of Birmingham. That optimism can only be spread if it is easier to share the information needed to have critical discussions about what’s going on in the city. As much as I’m not a big fan of the changes and worry about the future employment of people who I respect dearly, I’m also watching (and hoping) to see if one of those voices responsible for shaping that conversation can survive and endure as we move forward.
André Natta is the station master for bhamterminal.com.
Photo: The old and new Birmingham News headquarters, 2009. Bob Farley/f8photo.
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Posted in Commentary, media
Tagged Alabama Media Group, Birmingham, future, journalism, opinion, present, proposal, suggestion