An Urban Wasteland
A couple of weeks ago, The Heaviest Corner.org posted an old civil rights era article called, I Saw A City Die by Charles Morgan Jr. A Birmingham lawyer who criticized the white establishment’s response to the Civil Rights Movement; who was also eventually “run out-of-town.” It is worth reading without a doubt. The blog itself is also worth reading, though after several post it seems to take a pessimistic attitude towards the Magic City. But it isn’t wrong for being pessimistic, in fact I think it is a good reflection of how most educated people view the city. It is a view I’ve heard from many people I know.
“Birmingham is a city that has seen better times.”
“Birmingham is a dead city with a rotten core and a faceless suburbia”
etc…
This all may be true. But I would also add the following refrain, “Birmingham is a typical post World War II American city.”
While the events of the 1960s were especially violent and unique to Birmingham, the forces that shaped modern Birmingham are far from unique. Any American city you travel to, has a similar structure. A sparsely populated business district, surrounded on a couple of sides by a dense urban poor area, then stretching out, usually following the interstates or highways, is a middle class suburbia. Anyone who has been to Los Angeles, California can see what kind of hell the modern American city can be.
Does this mean Birmingham is Perfect? No, of course not.
Birmingham needs a better public transit system. Birmingham needs to try to save the historic buildings that occupy its’ downtown.
Birmingham needs a city newspaper.
Today I didn’t see a newspaper die, but I did see a newspaper in its death-throws. Kyle Whitmire, a former writer/journalist for the Birmingham Weekly posted a “pirated” article on his facebook page. The article was written by Birmingham News columnist John Archibald, but this article was not published in the News. It reads very much like one of Archibald’s typical writings except it’s different. It’s subject isn’t a corrupt politician or a city. No, Mr. Archibald has turned his pen on his own industry, I think, merely just to mention it to the readers. And apparently his bosses didn’t like it.
The Birmingham News is still a fairly popular paper. Considering how other papers its size are doing, The News should be adding reporters, not offering buy-out packages. Yet The News has a problem, a problem that at any previous time in history would have been a strength, it is owned by a giant conglomerate of other newspapers. This conglomerate, called Advanced Publications, is itself owned by publishing giant Condé Nast.
The publishing industry isn’t doing to well these days…
So while The News is profitable, it is forced to make cuts and furlough or buy-out workers, to save money for its sister papers. Even AL.com has taken furloughs, though it is the State’s most popular website and makes more than enough money off of advertising to pay the bills.
Rumors also abound that Advance might consolidate the business offices of the three Alabama newspapers it owns, locating all of its “non-news” functions to The Mobile Press-Register offices. Buying-out more workers in the process and diluting a once strong newspaper into a news aggregate service. And might even eventually refuse to publish lighthearted yet self-critical articles written by one of its most popular columnist.
Mr. Archibald’s unpublished column is a truth that can not be denied. The newspaper is dying and maybe the republic wont go with it. Something will come along to fill the information void. But one wonders does it have to? Does The News need to go down with the rest of the ship, or can it get off into a smaller boat, one not owned by New York businessmen. If not, will Birmingham go with it?
Birmingham needs a CITY newspaper.
