A copy The Birmingham News The newspaper rests on a rack in the Birmingham public library. According to the newspaper’s publisher, it will stop printing after February 26, 2023.
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A copy The Birmingham News The newspaper rests on a rack in the Birmingham public library. According to the company that manages the newspaper and its sister papers, it will stop printing after February 26, 2023.
Debbie Elliott/NPR
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It’s gotten harder to find a sidewalk newspaper box to buy a copy of The Birmingham NewsHowever, you can still find the most current edition at the city’s public library.
Sherrel Wheeler Steward hangs a food stained copy from a spindle.
She says, “A lot of people have read it.” “Look at this sauce.”
Stewart, a former reporter and editor who worked for the newspaper for almost two decades, has fond memories.
Stewart stated, “The frontpage used to be that sacred place,” Stewart said. You can pick up a Sunday paper and find your name on the top. It was special.
The Sunday paper is going to be gone.
Birmingham suffers a big loss
According to the Alabama Media Group, the press will be stopped permanently after February 26, 2023 (one last Sunday). The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times Mobile and Tablet Press-Register. The company had already curtailed publishing from daily to three times a week in 2012 — part of a restructuring by parent company Advance Publications that also affected New Orleans’ The Times-Picayune.
Stewart states that moving to digital is not a loss for cities like Birmingham or the nearly 200,000 people who reside there.
“It’s not a good idea,” she said. “Birmingham has been on the move. Birmingham, I believe, needs a printed newspaper.
While she may be sad to see the end of print, she also acknowledges that her main source of news is now online at AL.com.
According to newspaper executives, that is where the audience is.
“In an attempt to deliver more news and follow where people are going, we’ve decided to stop printing next years,” states President of Alabama Media Group Tom Bates.
It is evident in the numbers. Bates claims that a decade ago, the daily combined circulation for the Birmingham News, Huntsville Times Press-Register It was around 260,000. It’s now down to about 30,0000, he said, in comparison with AL.com’s daily reach, which is approximately a million people per day.
Bates said that “the growth on the digital side has been extraordinary.” “If our job it to get out important stories, then we must get them out in a way that people like to receive them. … We aim to do more journalism and not less.
This shift will result in the closing of Mobile’s printing plant and the loss or more than 100 jobs in advertising, production, circulation, and production. Kelly Ann Scott, editor in chief and vice-president of content at Alabama Media Group, said that no newsroom cuts were expected. She intends to expand her investigative teams and other areas.
Scott says, “As our audiences have developed with us to tell stories differently on different platforms and in different ways, we’ve added people in diverse directions.” You can take the example of podcasters and videographers. “We have definitely diversified the types of positions in our room.”
It has taken a while for print-to-digital to become a reality.
Local journalists who have been around for many years saw the day coming.
John Archibald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and journalist for AL.com. He said, “I grieved the newspaper twelve years ago, frankly,” The Birmingham News Since 1986.
Archibald said that he barely ever sees the print edition anymore. This may sound absurd to an old-school journalist, but Archibald says it’s the future.
“I love the newspaper and I have a nostalgia for print, but it’s not what I love about it.” He says it’s the idea of going out and reporting on news that people want to know. “We all work in this industry and are learning how to do this in this environment.”
Alabama’s current situation is the place where local newspapers have been going for a while, according to Penny Muse Abernathy who is a visiting professor in Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
She says, “It’s part of a larger progression as we have seen the decline of daily newspapers over two decades.”
Abernathy writes annual reports on the state and future of local news across the nation. The report 2022 found that less than 1/5 of 100 largest newspapers in America are publishing more than once a week in print editions.
Natalie Davis, a retired political scientist and group of others were gathered at the lunch Buffet at the American Legion Homewood, Ala. The Birmingham News The old one is gone.
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Natalie Davis, a retired political scientist and group of others were gathered at the lunch Buffet at the American Legion Homewood, Ala. The Birmingham News The old one is gone.
Debbie Elliott/NPR
Newspapers are a strong force for community involvement
Abernathy said that as papers disappear, the question is now whether digital publications can fulfill the same civic role as newspapers.
Abernathy states that the best, strongest and most committed daily newspapers help to bind together a nation. “And I believe that’s what you’re really dealing with is what’s the relevance of these newspapers in a digital age?” Who decides the topics that will be discussed and debated?
Alabamians have been reading The Birmingham News Since the late 1800s.
Randall Woodfin, Birmingham Mayor, says that it will be an adjustment to no longer have a printed edition.
He says, “It’ll be a shock for the system.”
Woodfin, 41 years old, is a digital first news consumer. However, he does not know everyone in this area is wired the same way.
He says, “We embrace the innovations.” “I hope that we can still communicate with each generation.
His stepmother, Yvonne Fluker Woodfin, is the reason he cites. She has been diligently collecting and clipping newspaper articles about Woodfin’s political life. She sounds worried when he calls to ask her about the paper’s end.
“Well, I think that it will make many people not know what’s up,” Mrs. Woodfin said.
Digital access is a concern. Public schools in this area found that approximately 1 in 5 households had no or limited internet access during the pandemic.
Even so, newspapers aren’t as common in public places today as they were at one time.
Some may be for a long time Birmingham News A recent lunch buffet at Homewood American Legion was attended by subscribers who discussed the death of the paper.
Al LaPierre, former executive director of Alabama Democratic Party, says that “we call this our government-in exile table back there.” He is sitting at a table that includes a number of politicalos who gather here every Wednesday.
LaPierre claims he’s not surprised that newspapers’ days are over.
“I noticed a few years ago even — you bought the Birmingham News on a Saturday or Sunday and then you’d seen it on their media site the day before, so why get it?”
Natalie Davis, a retired political scientist, defends the paper across the table. She continues to subscribe and is concerned about what will happen to the paper when it goes away.
Davis states that the newspaper is the only remaining medium where everyone reads the same story and receives the same facts. That’s what newspapers do.
Chandler McGee, a former veterinarian, stops by and thanks the paper for saving his life.
He says, “I’m only 84 years old.” “Reading the newspaper is one joy of my life.”
He lives in an elderly community, where he claims that few people have access to the internet.
McGee said, “I think it signifies, especially for elderly citizens, that our country is going to be cut off”
Alabama Media Group executives claim that that is not their intent and that all residents of the three metropolitan areas they serve should be able access their content online.
Roy Johnson, AL.com columnist came to Birmingham in 2015 He had been a sports writer for AL.com since the 1970s. Sports Illustrated The New York Times, and other national magazines, some of them no longer in publication.
Johnson says Johnson: “I truly have lived the life which represents the evolution in the media industry.”
He said that the distribution method may have changed but that the mission is the same.
“One of these day, we’re going have to explain our grandkids about why we put words onto a piece of paper and then rolled it up, put in a car or truck, drove around, and threw the thing on people’s driveway. “That’s how they got the news,” he said. “It will be similar to the Pony Express for us.”
Johnson advises long-time readers of print: The digital age is here, so get on board.