newspaper column about newspapers

Editor's note: Just take what I normally say every week about my column for the Times and insert it here. As always, feel free to add suggestions or helpful (or hateful) comments here or by finding me on Twitter.

Wherever we’re headed in media, let’s hope there will be some good people there

I am not nearly qualified to write an obituary for the print industry in this state, obviously. But it feels like someone should.

Last week, the Birmingham News, Huntsville Times and Press-Register (in Mobile) made a somewhat surprising announcement: they were shifting their company titles and switching to a three-day-per-week printed edition. The Times-Picayune, in New Orleans, made the same announcement earlier that day. All four publications exist in a daily format online (hey, just like us!).

Is it sad news? I’m not sure. It’s certainly sad to see jobs lost in any form – and really, no matter how nice a face we try to put on it, there’s no doubt people will lose jobs as part of all this, whether they’re design people or press operators or even newspaper carriers.

But the death of printed newspapers isn’t so much the death of news. News reporters continue to exist, whether they come in the form of talking heads on television, disembodied voices on radio (OK, so the radio guys generally just read the newspaper) or writers and bloggers who maintain a presence online.

In a way, the new wave of the news industry is the proverbial free marketplace of ideas – instead of 30-minute newscasts and daily newspaper cycles, the news now happens all the time on a hundred different channels. And, of course, online, where news can be reported, retracted, reported again, speculated upon, argued and then retracted again, in the space of a few minutes.

Out of that sea of information, somewhere, is the actual truth of a story. Though how one can reach it without being distracted by a vignette about Lauren Conrad’s wardrobe or the latest video game release or possibly a quick game of Words With Friends (or several quick games) is debatable.

The most important thing – whether the reporter works on the Web or the TV or the radio – remains accountability. The ink-stained wretches of this world – now stained with … computer ink? … I have no idea – do not drive into the eye of a storm or sit through a four-hour council meeting because they enjoy leering at misfortune or dysfunction. They are there to tell the story, as completely as they can, as many sides as there can be. It’s a job that pays very little, and for which, if they are fortunate, they might receive a certificate from someone one day saying they did a good job (but very little in the way of compensation).

I hope that reporter still exists 20 years from now. Daily publication or no.

Tuesday tube: the finisher

Just a few touchdown runs by No. 3 that finished off opponents in 2011. Please to enjoy.

2009 vs. 2010 vs. 2011: where no man dares tread

I'll lay it out for you this way: It's late May, there's no football other than what you can find on Youtube (and Youtube keeps taking the really good stuff) on the horizon ... and frankly, I could use the distraction. Expect an erratic posting regimen from me until August. What do you want from me?

It's not necessary for me to say this, obviously, but the last three seasons have been a run of football the likes of which this state has never seen. Three consecutive national championships. Two Heisman Trophy winners. And finally the answer to the question, "Is it possible for Alabama and Auburn to be good at the same time?"

So, because I'm nerd like this — and because God forbid I devote my brainpower to something useful — I have been kicking around a post that would objectively compare the three teams. I suppose there are more qualified people to do this and better ways of doing it — you may remember I attempted to do the same thing with 2009 Alabama and 2004 Auburn a few years back, not long after I attempted to determine the Program of the Decade in the SEC. So I like to think I have an idea of what I'm talking about, at least.

Anyway, here are the resumes of the three teams, as complete as I can make them.

2009 Alabama
14-0 (10-0), SEC West champs, SEC champs, BCS national champs.
Best player: Mark Ingram, RB — 1,658 yards rushing (6.1 ypc); 1,992 total yards (6.6 yards per touch); 20 TDs; Heisman Trophy.
Best wins: vs. Florida (12-0, SEC East champs) in Georgia Dome; vs. Texas (13-0, Big XII champs) in Rose Bowl.
Thoughts: Without a doubt, the best resume of any of the three. The 2009 Alabama team had an unbelievable point differential (449-164), and of its 14 wins, only two of them — Florida International and North Texas — were against teams below .500. Also, the '09 Tide beat Ole Miss (9 wins) and Auburn (8 wins)  on the road, and beat Texas, Florida and Virginia Tech (10 wins) at neutral sites.
The Florida game, of course, is the one that will always stand out: Florida hadn't lost a game in more than 14 months by the time it got to Atlanta, and needed only that win to cement the legacies of Tim Tebow and Urban Meyer as arguably the best quarterback-coach combo in the history of the league.

Really, the only holes to poke in this team's resume is the extraordinary good fortune it received vs. Tennessee, the fact that Mark Ingram's Heisman Trophy may have been by default as much as anything, or that Marcell Dareus knocked out Texas' Colt McCoy in the first quarter of the MNC game in Pasadena. Based on pure numbers, though? Hard to argue.

2010 Auburn
14-0 (10-0), SEC West champs, SEC champs, BCS national champs
Best player: Cam Newton, QB — 66.1 completion percentage; 2,854 yards (10.2 ypa); 30-7 TD-INT raio; 1,473 rushing yards (5.6 ypc); 51 total TDs; Heisman Trophy.
Best wins: vs. LSU (10 wins); at Alabama (10 wins); vs. Oregon (13-0, Pac-10 champs) at Phoenix.
Thoughts: Look at that stat line again. 51 total TDs?! How is that even possible?! Newton's stat line becomes even more unbelievable over time, considering he did much of that against some pretty good sSEC defenses (LSU and Alabama, specifically).

And we can argue until the end of time about whether Auburn did something nefarious to get him there, or whether his hands were really clean in the whole "$camdal" affair, but the fact is that it doesn't matter. That was the best college football season I ever saw, and I have a hard time believing I'll ever see anything like it again.
He was so good, he basically dragged the rest of his team along with him. Auburn had some good pieces in 2010 — Michael Dyer had a breakout season as a freshman tailback and Nick Fairley emerged as both very good and very, very dirty at defensive tackle — but Cam was the man who made the ship go. Having a favorable schedule that brought every difficult opponent except Alabama to Jordan-Hare Stadium that year didn't hurt matters, either.

2011 Alabama
12-1 (8-1), BCS national champs
Best player: Trent Richardson, RB — 1,679 yards (5.9 ypc); 2,017 total yards (6.5 yards per touch); 24 total TDs; 2nd in the Heisman voting.
Best wins: vs. Arkansas (10 wins); at Florida (8-5, but 4-0 coming in); vs. LSU at the Superdome (13-1, SEC West champs, SEC champs).
Thoughts: I said this in January, but I do believe the 2011 Alabama team to be the best of Nick Saban's squads. And I also think it's the best of these three teams, at least in terms of pure talent. That sounds a little odd, given that it didn't put together a resume quite like 2009, and it didn't have a single player as dominant as what Cam Newton did in 2010.
That said, this Alabama team played defense about as well as any team I've ever seen, and that includes the 1992 team generally regarded as the best defense ever. Outside of the LSU game — which took on a life of its own — Alabama was barely challenged the entire season. In fact, other than the very last play of overtime vs. LSU, Alabama trailed exactly four times all season: 3-0 to Penn State, 7-0 at Florida, 7-0 at Ole Miss and 3-0 vs. Tennessee. And that was it.
The highest compliment I can pay to them is this: They were a boring squad to watch. That defense was so good and so smothering, it actually took much of the fun out of the game. And the national championship game vs. LSU was a prime example: They knew everything the Tigers were going to do before they did it, and it simply took their spirit away from them.

The competition was a little iffy: Alabama didn't play either of the two best teams in the SEC East (South Carolina and Georgia) and played all its biggest games at home other than the game at Auburn.
 Of course, the scar on the season will forever be this: It did not win its division or conference title — and needed a great deal of good luck to jump back into the picture —  and thus many (who aren't us) will sort of see it as carrying an asterisk (although if it leads to us finally getting a postseason tournament, maybe that's better for everybody).
All these things are a) very true and b) somewhat immaterial to the final result. Anyone who watched these three teams would say the following: the 2009 Tide played the best schedule: the 2010 Tigers had the best player; but the 2011 Tide was the best of them all.

newspaper column is about praying

Editor's Note: This week's column for the St. Clair Times wasn't a fully formed idea. But it was fun to write, so I hope you enjoy it. As always, you can chime in here or on Twitter.

Praying in all things, except when it might not be necessary

This column idea, believe it or not, began with “Dancing With the Stars.”

Believe me, that’s not something I admit with any degree of pride. I watched the show because I had temporarily lost control of the remote, and my only other choice was to scream loudly until the person in charge of the remote either changed the channel or called the cops to have me forcibly removed from the house. So I chose to grin and bear it.

In any case, this particular episode was wrapping up and Jaleel White — formerly TV’s “Urkel” on “Family Matters” — was in danger of losing whatever challenge he was facing and leaving the show.

(Note: Jaleel White seems like a nice dude, and I confess to watching “Family Matters” a few years back. But Jaleel is neither a particularly good dancer, nor a “star.” And yet he was probably the third-most famous person on the show. I have no idea what my point is.)

In any case, one of the distracting features on the show is to run “tweets” from viewers who are simultaneously watching the show and posting online about it. I’m not sure what the point of this was, either, but one of them caught my eye.

“Praying for Team Jaleel to not be eliminated tonight!!! #dwts”

That led to the following thought: “Wait … God couldn’t possibly be watching ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ could He?”

Weirdly, one of the most pressing issues for people of faith is to know when is an appropriate time to pray. Some I’ve known believe in the approach offered in 1 Thessalonians to “pray without ceasing” and have been known to offer up prayers for runny noses, stuck zippers and slow-running computers. And others scoff and say, “Can we save the prayers for things that matter?”

Poor Tim Tebow somehow found himself in the middle of that fight during the last football season, as people argued over whether Tebow’s faith was some sort of vending machine. If Tim puts in enough tokens, will he win some sort of prize?

And if God listens to Tebow about the Broncos, couldn’t we put Tim in charge of praying about world hunger or ridding the world of boy bands? You know, something meaningful?

The truth is that I’m not sure what the truth is. But the best answer may have come from someone I know who teaches first grade.

“If you’re bashful about what to pray for, you should ask some little kids. You’ll pray about loose teeth, somebody’s missing stuffed animal and somebody’s sick grandma, all in the same day.”

That makes perfect sense, I thought. Do they pray about “Dancing With the Stars?”

“They go to bed too early,” she said.

Fair enough.

Tuesday tube: West by God Virginia

Alabama and West Virginia announced a matchup to open the 2014 season late last week, a game that will be, oddly enough, the first meeting between the two programs. Since there's not much else going on and I'm not feeling terribly inspired, here's a random video of West Virginia's defense hitting things.

That was fun. As it happens, Alabama is pretty good at hitting things, also. And we have a good history these days opening the season in the Dome. A few examples for your enjoyment.

 

a newspaper column about football and choosing a college

Editor's note: This week's column is also available at the Times' website. I am reposting it here because I can't always reach the website for some bizarre reason.  Also, I'm adding a footnote at the bottom, because I forgot to put it in the original column (it wouldn't have been terribly germane anyway).

School choice about more than just the usual reasons

This is sort of embarrassing to admit, but here goes.

When I was 17, much of my brainpower was dedicated to deciding where I would attend college. Well, that and finding the best chicken wings. I really like chicken wings.

In any case, the college decision weighed pretty heavily on my mind, as it does with many who are faced with the prospect of choosing a destination for the next 2-4 years of life.

“There’s really no pressure,” one person told me. “It’s only, like, the most important decision you’ll ever make.”

Thanks.

Of course there were any number of criteria involved in the decision. And — here’s the part where it’s a little embarrassing — the football team was a part of that.

That makes very little sense since, well, I wasn’t going to, um, play football. I did have a chance to play at a small college, but when it came to showing up on the big time … well, those dreams were about as realistic as me scoring a date with Britney Spears (it was 1999 – these days a date with Britney Spears seems way more realistic).

Even so, when considering colleges, I did consider the football program. You have to understand, at that point, 18-year-old Will had only two real passions in life: youth group and Alabama football. The prospect of waking up every day in a world where everybody else was passionate about Alabama football — remember, I lived in the heart of Auburn country — was as important as the quality of the dorms and the academic regimen.

(And chicken wings. I really can’t emphasize that enough.)

My dad definitely understood the choice, too. The day he dropped me off at the dorm on the corner of Hackberry Lane and Bryant Drive, he looked up at the top of Bryant-Denny Stadium peeking through the treetops — really, it looks from a distance like a spaceship opening up — and said, “This is pretty cool.”

By every objective measure, the choice worked out for the best: I have a degree now, and many of my best friends in life I met in Tuscaloosa … including my wife. Even if the choice seems arbitrary to the rest of the sane universe, it wound up being one of the better decisions I’ve ever made*.

* — Here I note that, from the time I entered the university (1999) until the time my wife graduated with her second degree (2006), Alabama football experienced the single most tumultuous stretch in the 120-year history of the program: four losing seasons, four different head coaches, two very ugly, very public personal scandals and crippling NCAA probation. Weirdly, that period also included three 10-win seasons and an SEC championship. While we're here, I must also note that my brother Whit showed great determination by remaining in Tuscaloosa until the championship season of 2009. Good job by him there.

In a recent column, Buzz Bissinger — renowned and slightly unhinged author of “Friday Night Lights,” among other things — argued that college football should be dropped entirely. It is not an academic pursuit, he argues, and exposes more young men to unnecessary risks, for which there is little to no payoff.

His point is well taken. But it’s possible he doesn’t see the whole picture, either.

Tuesday tube: best year ever?

Things around here have, obviously, slowed down quite a bit. Until August, it's likely the only regular features you'll see around here are this one and my column for the St. Clair Times, when it runs. From time to time, hopefully the muse will strike and you'll be rewarded with something longer. I'm working on one for this weekend, assuming it ever gets finished. 

In any case, this week's edition of "Tube" was inspired by this post from Michael Casagrande, arguing that the 2011-2012 athletic season might just be the best in the history of the program. Watch the highlights and judge for yourself.

Of course, if the softball team can finally pay it off with a championship at the WCWS, maybe there's no more discussion.
Regardless, it's great to be from Alabama. Roll Tide.