News Showcase

The numbers on the AM and FM dials mostly remained unchanged, but radio was never the same after passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

According to the nonpartisan open-government advocacy group Common Cause, the law vastly altered ownership rules for radio stations. This, in turn, led to massive consolidation of radio ownership.

Clear Channel owns almost 1,200 radio stations across the country, including one in Gadsden. Before 1996, a media company was barred from owning more than 40 stations.

Critics say one change too often brought by consolidation is that throughout the day and night at many radio stations, a computer, instead of a reporter, holds down the fort.

A local newsman with intimate knowledge of the area often has been replaced by canned programs that never touch on local concerns.

Mike Stedham remembers the way things once were in the Anniston market. The former radio journalist and former Anniston Star writer and editor is now manager of student media at Jacksonville State University.

At the local AM radio station WDNG, where Stedham got his start in the news business, "25 years ago we had two full-time reporters and a weekend reporter," Stedham recalled recently.

"Now, this was a tiny, 1,000-watt station, but we were out working the beat every day and filing stories frequently."

Stedham attributes WDNG's former emphasis on news coverage to the late Tom Potts, the owner of the station. Potts also regularly aired editorials on local topics.

"To Tom, news was vitally important. He put his money on what he thought was most important for the community," Stedham says.

The coverage he and his news colleagues supplied let residents know what was going on daily at the police department, the fire department, the city council, he says.

Competition drove that coverage.

When Stedham was hustling for stories on the streets and in meeting halls, he was always trying to beat reporters from The Star and from the then-local television station, WHMA/TV-40, as well as other local radio stations.

"We were constantly seeing who could scoop the other," Stedham recalled. "It made for a lot of fun and good news coverage. The public was the big winner in all of this, no doubt about it."

That was then.

Mike Mitchell, the newsman at WCKA/Alabama 810 in Jacksonville, tells a different story of the radio broadcast landscape in the county today.

He knows that landscape because he's the only radio journalist in the county still reporting stories from location.

"For us, the philosophy is pretty simple," Mitchell says. "The public owns the airways, and we have to serve the public."

That's his way of introducing the station's commitment to newsgathering.

With Mitchell reporting, Alabama 810 airs hourly news spots from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., with longer editions sprinkled throughout the day. On election night or when there is breaking news, the station goes live until the story is reported out.

"I get here at 4 a.m., and I leave when I'm done," he said. "It can make for some long days."

And pricey ones, he admits. The station's owner, Les Graddick of Georgia, brought Mitchell on board at the 50,000-watt station a few years ago to bolster news coverage. Graddick opted against automation. Instead, he staffed the station with people like Mitchell, a 35-year radio veteran.

"Getting the news can be expensive," Mitchell said. "Most owners just get the computers to do it. Computers don't get sick, they don't ask for the day off. But if you want real local news, you have to have people, and our owner is committed to that, and that is what makes us successful."

Mitchell says he makes it his business, for example, to cover area city council meetings and county commission meetings.

Eric Klinenberg, a professor of sociology at New York University and author of "Fighting for Air," notes a trend that seems to reflect the values held at Alabama 810.

"Ironically," Klinenberg says, "media executives everywhere now recognize that their audience demands local content, because they can get national and international news and entertainment online.

"The trouble is that original content is expensive to produce, and too often chains and conglomerates skimp on staff and hope that no one will notice."

Other local stations, such as WVOK-FM in Oxford, do daily news updates, but don't have full-time news reporters.

At WHOG in Hobson City, "We do several news broadcasts a day," News Director Paulette Miller said. "I do a lot of calling and follow-up, and we do interviews; but not every day."

WDNG, the station whose former news coverage Stedham described in near-reverent terms, remained committed to the news until the end of 2002, when the familiar voice of David Ford, who had reported local events in Anniston for 25 years, left the air.

Budget cutbacks, Ford says, were the reason for his departure at the locally owned ABC affiliate.

"We used to have two 15-minute news broadcasts per day, morning and evening, but we no longer do that," said Frank DiPietro, co-owner of WDNG. "That is about the only thing that has changed."

"You have to understand that we're not like a newspaper, people don't subscribe to us," DiPietro told a Star reporter. "Our only source of revenue is advertising, and there are many stations competing for that advertising in this area."

Ford, the long-time WDNG newsman, now works at the Berman Museum in Anniston.

"I remember when WHMA, WDNG had news, and TV-40 was on the air and The Star was there. It was good local coverage," Ford said from his new office at the museum.

"That simply does not exist anymore. There's The Star and TV-24 and Alabama 810; but it is not like it used to be. The community is the loser here."

About this series

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 poses a threat to broadcast media's essential role in democracy, according to critics.

In a four-part series which began Sunday, Anniston Star Editor at Large John Fleming examines the law's impact on Calhoun County's once-abundant local news media.

Related articles:

• Straining to hear democracy through the static

• What's on TV?

• The consequences when local media isn't there for the public