Media Frenzy

By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

92ZEW announces line-up changes

Brien in, O’Brien out

Sports talk in the mornings has changed again, as WNSP 105.5 FM has replaced host Scott O’Brien with newcomer Brien Straw. Straw is now co-hosting the station’s morning show with Lee Shirvanian, and O’Brien is working with the station’s advertising sales department.

Straw comes to Mobile from Atlanta where he hosted a regionally syndicated sports show. He is a graduate of Ole Miss and has been on the air locally for the past couple of weeks.

ZEW Changes

There are also some other changes inside the WZEW/WNSP building on Dauphin Street. Catt Sirten returns to the ZEW’s lineup Nov. 2, bringing his eclectic brand of jazz programming back to the station.

Sirten will again produce the “Sunday Jazz Brunch,” which will air from 8 a.m. – 2 p.m., bumping “92 Blues” back to 2 p.m. – 5 p.m. Sirten will also air his “Radio Avalon” show weeknights from 9 p.m. – 12 a.m.

Also, morning ZEW listeners will already have noticed the addition of Emily Hayes to the station’s early show. Hayes joined Trey Matthews Oct. 20 as a co-host. Matthews has hosted the show solo since former morning man Sean Sullivan became part of the ownership at “The Pirate” earlier this year.

Hayes broke in at ZEW by hosting its nighttime show for the past several months.

Media flops

Every now and then an article is published or story runs that makes me ashamed for my “colleagues” in the media. It happened twice last week.

First there was the exposure of “Joe the Plumber’s” tax problems and financial situation after he dared to ask Barack Obama about his tax plan. Keeping in mind that Obama wandered up in Joe’s yard to speak to him, the subsequent attention from John McCain and following destruction at the hands of reporters wasn’t something Joe asked for. I guess the campaign is getting really nasty now.

Of more local interest was the truly awful, bush-league journalism on display in the New York Times Oct. 14. Headlined “For Some, Uncertainty Starts at Racial Identity,” the story was written by Adam Nossiter and featured some interviews with unrepentant racists across The South.

Naturally Nossiter’s travels brought him to a Wal-Mart parking lot just north of Mobile where he managed to find the biggest rednecks around. Surprise – there are still racists in Mobile. And guess what New York Times, there are still racists in your city, your state, in Connecticut and throughout New England, even. The South in general and Mobile in particular are not special bastions of backward thought.

News flash New York Times – Mobile has an African-American mayor. Clearly as a group we are comfortable voting for an African-American. But, as they say, never let facts get in the way of a story. Nossiter appears to have employed some rather unscientific methods to fulfilling his initial claim that voters in The South are against Obama because of his racial background.

“In interviews here in the Deep South and in Virginia, white voters made it clear that they remain deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama – with his politics, his personality and his biracial background,” Nossiter wrote.

To back up his thesis, Nossiter appears to have hung around in parking lots looking for folks to interview. Now I’m no social scientist, but it probably wouldn’t be too tough to wander around the Wally World lot and find some uneducated types more prone to ignorant comments. Here’s an example of what this “reporter” found.

“He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch,” said James Halsey, chuckling, while standing in the Wal-Mart parking lot with fellow workers in the environmental cleanup business. “I just don’t think we’ll ever have a black president.”

I suppose in the New York Times newsroom it’s an easy decision to run such a shoddy story. After all, Southerners are all idiot racists and inbreeds. Alabama’s probably going to vote for McCain, so it’s obviously because Obama’s black. The shared East Coast elitist attitude that appears prevalent in the Times’ pages is no doubt behind the editorial decision to send Mr. Nossiter out to hang around in Southern parking lots. I wonder if anyone even blinked before running this tripe?

I not trying to say Alabama doesn’t have its share of racists or idiots or idiot racists. Hell, we may even truly have a higher percentage of racists than some other places in the country. But I’d bet anything I could wander around Manhattan and find people who espouse attitudes just as ignorant and offensive as Nossiter found in that Citronelle Wal-Mart parking lot.

The real question is why is this considered news? What’s new about it? What’s important about it? What’s even surprising about it? There are people voting for Obama strictly because he’s black, just as there are people who won’t vote for him because he’s black. It’s hardly a story.

It seems to me Nossiter and the N.Y. Times owe the entire South an apology for such a shabby story. One would think a newspaper with the reputation the Times thinks it has could be a little more thoughtful. Then again, it usually takes an institution’s reputation longer to fade than it does the institution’s values.

Hopefully when the election is over, Mr. Nossiter can head back to New York and work on exposing racism there. Somehow I doubt he will.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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