A Birmingham subsidiary of the utility giant Southern Company, based in Atlanta, has established a stranglehold on Alabama media, thanks to its affiliation with a network of conservative "news sites" that use stashes of money to fill in gaps left by the near collapse of local journalism around the country, according to a report today from banbalch.com.
K.B. Forbes, publisher of the Ban Balch blog and CEO of its parent organization, the CDLU public charity and advocacy group, writes under the headline "Whores of Babylon! Southern Company’s Grip on Alabama Media, Smear Sites, and Paid Stooges Affirmed":
The Guardian has published a damning investigative report by Floodlight that shows unequivocally that Southern Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Alabama Power, has bought, manipulated, and infiltrated media coverage throughout the State of Alabama.
For decades, Alabama Power has sown influence across the state, according to interviews with more than two dozen former and current reporters, civil-rights activists, utility employees and environmentalists.
What’s happening in Alabama is an example of how special interests have taken advantage of the diminishing reach and influence of shrinking mainstream newsrooms in the US. In their place have sprung up fake “pink slime” news sites operated by political interests; a utility that secretly created news outlets to attack its critics; and a Florida publisher who accepts payments for positive coverage.
This investigation into power companies infiltrating local media follows Floodlight’s revelation earlier this month about how utilities wield influence among civil-rights groups.
In the last decade, nearly a dozen local reporters and editors were hired to staff the two Alabama news outlets. A Floodlight review of the content since the utility founded the Alabama News Center in 2015 shows it publishes overwhelmingly positive stories about the power company.
Coverage of the utility by The Birmingham Times, which was funded with money from Alabama Power’s charitable arm, the Alabama Power Foundation, consists of reprinted stories from the Alabama News Center and the utility’s own press releases.
How tight are the Alabama News Center and Alabama Power? Content for the former can be found at the website of the latter. A similar arrangement appears to be in place for The Birmingham Times, a historically Black newspaper that has published since 1964.
To complete our picture of inbreeding, we have this: Alabama News Center is listed as an "author" at Yellowhammer News, a site that long has had ties to Alabama Power. Does Yellowhammer strive to present "fair and balanced" news coverage? Its writers apparently do not try very hard.
Consider this headline on a piece by a fellow named Dale Jackson: "7 Things: President Biden is a mean-spirited elderly corrupt liar." Joe Biden, of course,, is a Democrat, and I see no sign of a similar headline at Yellowhammer about a Republican. What else does Mr. Jackson have to say about the president of the United States? Let's try this:
6. While the Biden administration continues to suggest that gas prices and grocery prices are down, the reality of their flimsy narrative is that inflation is still over 3%, far above the desired and predicted rate of 2%. But the myth must be sold because admitting that inflation is up 17.3% with gas prices up 30% since Biden took office is a fact that cannot be explained away, blamed on his predecessor, or placed on the back of American companies during a rant on Super Bowl Sunday.
Here are two more pearls from Mr. Jackson:
2. Americans know there is, at minimum, a two-tier justice system: 64% of those polled by Reuters/IPSOS believe President Joe Biden illegally kept classified documents, while 54% think he “received special treatment because he is the U.S. president.” And the hits keep coming for Biden as 78% of those polled and 71% of Democrats think he is “too old to work in government.”
1. The idea that President Joe Biden is anything but a terrible liar is being decimated
by reality every single day. Yesterday it became clear that Biden lied
about meeting with a Chinese energy company doing business with his
crack-head son while he was vice president. Later in the day, Tony
Bobulinski testified, a Biden-family business partner, told Congress
that the elder Biden was “the brand” for sale by that business and,
“The Chinese Communist Party through its surrogate, China Energy Company
Limited, or ‘CEFC’ — a CCP-linked Chinese energy conglomerate —
successfully sought to infiltrate and compromise Joe Biden and the
Obama-Biden White House.” (Note: Readers might want to read the story under this Washington Post headline: "Here’s how dishonest James Comer’s Biden allegations are." It pretty much leaves Dale Jackson melted into a puddle of water, urine, or both.)
6. Let's shine some light on Mr. Jackson's assertions. Re: the Biden economy, Axios reported the following on Jan. 31:
The U.S. economy grew faster than any other advanced economy last year — by a wide margin — and is on track to do so again in 2024, Axios' Neil Irwin writes.
- Why it matters: America's outperformance is rooted in its distinctive structural strengths, policy choices and some luck. It reflects a fundamental resilience in the world's largest economy that's easy to overlook with the nation's problems.
All countries dealt with the same problems of post-pandemic inflation and high interest rates. But the U.S. managed to achieve solid growth despite those headwinds
Here is more on the Biden economy from The Washington Post Jan. 28:
The European economy, hobbled by unfamiliar weakness in Germany, is barely growing. China is struggling to recapture its sizzle. And Japan continues to disappoint.
But in the United States, it’s a different story. Here, despite lingering consumer angst over inflation, the surprisingly strong economy is outperforming all of its major trading partners.
Since 2020, the United States has powered through a once-in-a-century pandemic, the highest inflation in 40 years and fallout from two foreign wars. Now, after posting faster annual growth last year than in 2022, the U.S. economy is quashing fears of a recession while offering lessons for future crisis-fighting.
“The U.S. has really come out of this into a place of strength and is moving forward like covid never happened,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist who now runs an eponymous consulting firm. “We earned this; it wasn’t just a fluke.”
On Friday, President Biden hailed fresh government data showing that annual inflation over the second half of 2023 fell back to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target. Coupled with Thursday’s news that the economy grew by 3.1 percent over the past 12 months, the Commerce Department report showed that the United States appears to have achieved an economic soft landing.
Question for Mr. Jackson: Who is the real liar here?
As for item No. 2 on Mr. Jackson's list, he seems to be suggesting that political actions are supposed to be determined by the opinions of Americans who probably have no idea what they are talking about. The polling data apparently was driven by a special counsel's report regarding Biden's handling of classified documents. Knowledgeable critics have called Robert Hur's report a "partisan hit job."
Jackson, it seems, would have you believe Hur is a neurologist who is qualified to determine if someone suffers from a cognitive. deficit. Alas, Hur is a lawyer (and a Trump appointee), not a neurologist, and there is nothing in his bakground to suggest he is qualified to make judgments about anyone's memory.
As for No. 1, we've already shown that Jackson is out to lunch on the economy, so I see little reason to believe he's much of a source on anything related to China.
Let's return to K.B. Forbes for insights about Alabama Power's network of conservative con artists:
The Southern Company criminal enterprise used these same tactics and venues in the campaign of fear and intimidation against Burt Newsome and his family, us (the CDLU), and our CEO, K.B. Forbes, and his family in the summer of 2020.
That summer, the Alabama Political Reporter (APR) viciously and repeatedly attacked Forbes, this website, and the CDLU.
Josh Moon, a once-respected journalist, amputated his brain and did a series of orchestrated hit jobs through 2021 attacking the CDLU, K.B. Forbes, and Burt Newsome.
Moon even allegedly stalked the CDLU, showing up to our headquarters.
Southern Company paid APR $120,000 through Matrix, the obscure political consulting firm, according to documents we obtained anonymously, to attack and smear Forbes and Newsome.
The Guardian affirms the history of payouts to APR whose publisher appears to act like a forgetful Bangkok whore:
Two Alabama Political Reporter journalists recounted separate instances of a critical story they wrote about Alabama Power being killed without explanation by their outlet in 2013 and 2021. Each suspected the articles were held to appease Alabama Power. At least as far back as April 2013, the Alabama Political Reporter was being paid $8,000 a month by Matrix, the consulting firm employed by Alabama Power, leaked records show. The site’s publisher didn’t remember the stories and denied they were killed because of the utility.
And is this aggressive approach from a utility company new? No, says The Guardian:
Even before Alabama Power created its own news entities, four reporters in the state said the utility was aggressive in squashing negative news coverage, including frequently challenging reporting by demanding to meet with top newsroom leaders or threatening lawsuits.
In 2001, Birmingham’s Fox 6 TV station killed a story about an elderly woman who died after life-sustaining equipment was turned off in her home when Alabama Power halted her electric service over failure to pay. Three former newsroom staffers who asked not to be named said a station executive – who later went to work for Alabama Power – spiked the story.
Lovely. Isn’t the Southern Company criminal enterprise just lovely?