Media Frenzy

By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

The exodus of longtime employees continues at WHIL, Mobile’s fine arts public radio station. Jo Ann Breland, an 18-year station employee quit last week, marking the fifth major departure since Catt Sirten took over as interim station manager last summer.

Breland most recently served as an announcer, and was on-air from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. She reduced her role early this fall from program director.

Breland could not be reached for comment.

Mining story

When the tragic story of the death of 12 West Virginia coal miners broke last week, it came too late for many morning newspapers across the country, leading them to run erroneous wire stories wrongly trumpeting the rescue of the miners.

The Mobile Register was one of those papers. Atop page one on its Jan. 4 paper, the Register ran a wire story moved originally by the Chicago Tribune. Of course, by the time those papers landed in most people’s yards, the story had taken a tragic 180.

Register managing editor Dewey English said the mistake was something impossible for local editors to have avoided.

“We had a 12:30 a.m. deadline that night, for a single edition of the Register, to accommodate the Orange Bowl game,” English said via e-mail. “I don’t know when the news broke via the news wires about the miners being dead, rather than being miraculously alive. I sure wish that our nightside news editors had still been here to remake the front page.”

“I also wish that our headline had ‘sourced’ the news, rather than made a flat statement that the miners were alive. Our wire version of the story (from the Chicago Tribune) sourced the news, but the headline did not.”

The Register did not run a front-page correction as it usually does, but English said they felt the next day’s stories adequately explained the mistake.

“We do correct wire stories when those services alert us to errors in pieces that we have used. In this case, the followup story, played prominently on page 1 Jan. 5, told of the terrible turn of events and set the record straight,” English said.

Many newspapers across the nation, as well as most national cable television news stations, ran stories declaring the miners alive before changing that story in the early morning hours of Jan. 4.

Oh That Wacky Nodine

Mobile County Commissioner Steve Nodine recently took the occasion of an interview with the University of South Alabama student newspaper, The Vanguard, to launch an attack on Mobile Bay Monthly magazine as a “liberal” publication.

“The Commish” was interviewed by Vanguard staffer Johnny Davis in a Q& A format. When the subject of Nodine’s selection as “Wackiest Politician” in Mobile Bay Monthly’s Readers Choice poll came up, Nodine reportedly made a few odd assertions.

The exchange was appeared in the Jan. 7 Vanguard as follows:

Vanguard: How does it feel to be named Mobile Bay Monthly’s “Wackiest Politician” for the second year in a row?

Nodine: They’re a liberal organization that never agreed with my policies. They’re a part of the Mobile Bay Watch and it stems from me trying to get Highway 98 accomplished. But they are the same people that take their kids to the parks I helped build. At least they’re talking about me.

Vanguard: You even beat out Roy Moore for the “Wackiest Politician” honor.

Nodine: I can’t complain about that. If I’m on that high of a political level, maybe I should run for president.

Mobile Bay Monthly publisher Jocko Potts took issue, tongue-in-cheek, with Nodine’s broadside.

“First of all, we didn’t call him wacky, our readers did, in a poll. Secondly, we’re not liberals, we’re opportunists. We base all our decisions on which way the wind is blowing. Thirdly, we have no connection with Mobile Bay Watch that I’m aware of, although I think they’re a needed voice in our area and many of our employees like to swim,” Potts said. “Finally, the younger people that work here are childless at this point, and us older folks’ kids are grown, so we rarely, if ever, take them to the park anymore. Tell Nodine to meet me at the Waffle House parking lot and we’ll duke it out.”

The Vanguard editor Jeff Poor stands by the report and noted that the interview was recorded.

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

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