On Tuesday's All In, MSNBC host Chris Hayes devoted a segment to the recent announcement that Alabama will be closing a significant number of the state's DMVs -- some in majority black counties -- as he fretted that Alabama may be making it more difficult for black voters to get the required voter ID cards.
Alabama
By Randy Hall | September 30, 2015 | 8:34 PM EDT
In an effort to resolve the ongoing debate about whether or not to fly the Confederate flag, Studio 30 -- a weekly public radio program -- commissioned 70kft, a Texas-based design firm, to come up with a new flag to represent "the modern South."
According to an article by John Hammontree – who writes features and opinion pieces for the AL.com Alabama website, the result of the project was a banner that combines the tried and true colors of red and blue diagonal stripes -- but no stars -- on a white background that represents “different people, with unique backgrounds, experiences and values. They are equal to each other, but different in color.”
By Tim Graham | March 15, 2015 | 6:24 PM EDT
The New York Times isn’t the only iconic media outlet to ignore George and Laura Bush’s visit to Selma as they obsess over the Obamas. On page 12 of the March 23 edition of People magazine, in the “Star Tracks” section, there’s a whole page devoted to “THE FIRST FAMILY IN SELMA.” In chronicling the events of March 7, there was no picture and no mention of President and Mrs. Bush (or any other Republicans).
By Bryan Ballas | March 3, 2015 | 1:26 PM EST
What was supposed to be a report on a constitutional battle in Alabama by CNN’s Elliott C. McLaughlin quickly transformed into what can only be described as gushing celebration of a triumph over traditional marriage advocates who are stuck living in the past.
McLaughlin began his piece on CNN.com with the story of a father of a gay man calling his son’s wedding "disgusting." He then poured contempt on the father as if he were a Klansman saying, "Disgusting, a word one might use to describe child molesters or a dead opossum in the road, was being applied to a couple of seven years exchanging vows that they'd love and cherish each other forever.”
ABC, CBS Compare Alabama Judge Halting Gay Marriages to George Wallace Blocking School Desegregation
By Curtis Houck | February 9, 2015 | 10:09 PM EST On Monday night, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC each devoted a segment of their Monday evening newscasts to the news that Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and some local government officials chose not to carry out a federal ruling that calls for gay marriages to be permitted despite a voter-approved ban.
Naturally, the networks provided favorable coverage to those in favor of gay marriage, proclaiming that this “standoff” in Alabama has become “a full-blown civil rights battle” with ABC and CBS comparing Moore to then-Alabama Governor George Wallace, who tried to block the desegregation of the state’s schools in 1963.
Pensacola Cartoonist Depicts Ala. Newspaper Job Cuts As Leading to Return (and Triumph) of Bull Connor's Fire Hoses
By Tom Blumer | June 27, 2012 | 12:27 AM EDT Recent job cuts at Alabama newspapers have been steep. The Birmingham Business Journal, which (ahem) apparently is not among the participants, reports that "Three of Alabama’s largest daily newspapers, including the Birmingham News, will lay off about 400 employees as they cut back their printing schedules and increase their focus on digital." The other affected publications include the Huntsville Times and the Mobile Press Register. The job cuts are on the order of 50%-60%.
Across the Alabama border in Florida at the Pensacola News Journal, cartoonist Andy Marlette did not handle the layoff news well, as will be seen after the jump.
By Brad Wilmouth | December 28, 2011 | 7:58 PM EST
Wednesday's CBS Evening News featured a report by correspondent Mark Strassmann playing up the reservations that some are having about the new law to strictly enforce immigration laws in Alabama.
After noting that a poll supposedly shows that Latino voters are dissatisfied because the Obama administration has deported record numbers of illegal immigrants, substitute anchor Jeff Glor introduced Strassmann's piece by playing up the "second thoughts" that some supporters of the law are having: "Mark Strassmann went to Alabama, where some are having second thoughts now about a tough new law."
(Video below)
By Clay Waters | October 5, 2011 | 2:42 PM EDT
Campbell Robertson cranked the melodrama up to eleven in his New York Times story on Tuesday on the upholding by a federal judge of a tough new immigration law in Alabama: “After Ruling, Hispanics Flee an Alabama Town – Fears Rise Over a Tough Law on Immigrants.” Robertson talked of “the vanishing” and dabbled in a little Creative Writing 101: “In certain neighborhoods the streets are uncommonly quiet, like the aftermath of some sort of rapture.”
Illegal immigration is prehaps the issue most likely to trigger the paper’s liberal bias, and Robertson doesn’t disappoint. In his dramatic telling, the flight from the town of Albertville, Ala., was like something out of a science fiction movie:
By Brent Baker | September 30, 2011 | 7:22 AM EDT
Matching the pattern set in coverage of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law, the broadcast network evening newscasts on Thursday night all framed their stories on Alabama’s “severe” new law around its victims, with ABC anchor Diane Sawyer and NBC anchor Brian Williams both describing it as “Arizona on steroids.” They didn’t mean it as a compliment. Sawyer mischaracterized it as an “anti-immigration law.”
ABC was the most one-sided, with reporter Steve Osunsami not mentioning a reason for the new law until his very last sentence. Instead, Osunsami intoned, “Across Alabama today, demonstrators were furious, calling this the Arizona law with an Alabama twist,” before showing a man who charged that “it says that our government promotes racism.”
By Clay Waters | August 17, 2011 | 9:15 AM EDT
New York Times reporter Campbell Robertson reported Sunday from Cullman, Ala., “Alabama Law Criminalizes Samaritans, Bishops Say.” The Times showed an unusual and convenient respect for Southern Christians who are taking a liberal and paranoid stand on a new state law against illegal immigration -- the issue perhaps most likely to bring out the Times’s liberal bias.
On a sofa in the hallway of his office here, Mitchell Williams, the pastor of First United Methodist Church, announced that he was going to break the law. He is not the only church leader making such a declaration these days.
Report: Shirley Sherrod to Meet with Vilsack on Tuesday; Will the Press Raise Worker Exploitation Charges?
By Tom Blumer | August 22, 2010 | 11:13 AM EDT 
The Theater of the Sherrod(s) is apparently not over. At AL.com last night, Mike Tomberlin of the Birmingham News reported the following:
Former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod says she will meet Tuesday with agriculture secretary
Shirley Sherrod, the former USDA rural development director for Georgia, said today she plans to meet Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to discuss a new job offer.
... Sherrod today spoke in the Sumter County town of Epes at an event hosted by the Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. Ben Jealous, executive director of the NAACP, shared the stage with Sherrod during a panel discussion.
Sherrod said she had no ill feelings toward the NAACP or President Barack Obama.
It the meeting does indeed occur, it will be an interesting test of establishment media credibility, given the accusations leveled at Ms. Sherrod and her husband Charles by Ron Wilkins at the leftist publication Counterpunch several weeks ago. Here are some of the specifics:
By Jeff Poor | December 23, 2009 | 10:07 AM EST
On Dec. 22, when Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama announced he would be switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, it was to be expected MSNBC, the so-called "Place for Politics" would spin it in anyway imaginable. But Rachel Maddow decided to use the left's favorite boogeyman, the tea party movement, to denigrate conservatives and distract from what could be real problems for House Democrats.
During the Dec. 22 broadcast of "The Rachel Maddow Show," Maddow interpreted a joint conference call with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele and FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey to mean that the grassroots activism known as the tea party movement and the Republican Party had made peace. So, in the spirit of name-calling and low-brow humor, which the Maddow program has shown is one of its assets, Maddow contrived new titles for this movement (emphasis added).