Nieman Lab.
Predictions for
Journalism, 2024.
Alabama isn’t a bellwether for much.
Political change down here has often required mass civil disobedience and federal court orders. Even by contemporary “red state” political standards, we tend to follow rather than lead.
Texas and Florida have been in the vanguard of attacks on state-led diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, for instance. Tennessee and Montana are leading the effort to outlaw drag performances. Alabama’s notorious attempt to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth in 2022 followed a similar ban a year earlier in Arkansas.
But if we’re making journalism predictions for 2024, it may be worth paying attention to 1819 News. Launched in October 2021 as a fully owned subsidiary of the Alabama Policy Institute, the site was envisioned as “an independent news organization operated by people with Alabama values.” Earlier this year, in January 2023, the site severed ties with API — “ready to stand on its own feet.”
In November, the site published an exposé of F.L. “Bubba” Copeland, a Baptist pastor and Republican mayor of Smiths Station (population 5,470), who enjoyed cross-dressing as well as reading and writing trans erotica. He engaged in both hobbies as a form of stress relief, semi-publicly, yet secretly, using alt social media handles.
When confronted by an 1819 News reporter, Copeland deleted his accounts and asked that they not be made public. Instead, 1819 took a tabloid approach — gawking over every detail of his personal and anonymized gender play. When Birmingham-based radio duo “Rick and Bubba” followed the story by mercilessly mocking Copeland, 1819 covered it like it was news. They sought and published commentary from the Alabama Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, with which Copeland’s church was affiliated.
On November 3, little more than 48 hours after the initial story broke, Bubba Copeland committed suicide.
1819 News’ leadership has defended its coverage and denied any culpability for the consequences of its reporting. A week after his death, they published a column declaring boldly: “1819 News performed responsible journalism in exposing Copeland and the destruction he chose to leave in his wake.”
I’m already on the record decrying the irresponsibility of 1819 News’ coverage of Copeland, and I won’t rehash those ethical debates here. But as a researcher of right-wing media and conservative news, I can’t help but see Bubba Copeland as a canary in a coal mine.
As local news has continued its precipitous decline, conservative entrepreneurs (and funders) have rushed to fill the vacuum. 1819 News is among a growing number of hyperlocal and state-level right-wing digital news sites. Though not necessarily coordinated, these sites represent a new and often less visible terrain for right-wing misinformation campaigns, “culture war” posturing, and doxxing efforts.
While 1819 News is independent, many of these outlets are networked — think of them as conservative local newspaper chains, but digital. Launched in 2017 as the Tennessee Star, Star News Digital Media now boasts operations in 14 states. Perhaps the biggest such chain is Metric Media, which operates in all 50 states and has been deeply researched by Priyanjana Bengani of Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
As my own Tow Center–sponsored research with Anthony Nadler and Magda Koneiczna has shown, there is little ideological or ethical consistency among national-oriented conservative digital journalists — I suspect similar variety among more locally and state-oriented outlets. Some of the conservative journalists we spoke to expressed commitments to accuracy, fair representation of differing perspectives, and setting a measured tone in debate. Others we observed, namely those associated with Breitbart News, saw their work as “informational warfare.”
It will perhaps come as little surprise that Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of Breitbart, has lauded 1819 News as a “fantastic site.” The outlet’s editor-in-chief, Jeff Poor, worked under Bannon at Breitbart, as did Star News digital media CEO Michael Patrick Leahy.
The Breitbart martial approach to news is spreading, bringing cut-throat beltway political sensibilities to flyover states and rural towns across the country. Time will tell how communities like Smiths Station respond to this new, even crueler information environment. But given that we’re headed into a contentious presidential election year, you can bet Bubba Copeland won’t be the last casualty of it.
A.J. Bauer is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama.
Alabama isn’t a bellwether for much.
Political change down here has often required mass civil disobedience and federal court orders. Even by contemporary “red state” political standards, we tend to follow rather than lead.
Texas and Florida have been in the vanguard of attacks on state-led diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, for instance. Tennessee and Montana are leading the effort to outlaw drag performances. Alabama’s notorious attempt to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth in 2022 followed a similar ban a year earlier in Arkansas.
But if we’re making journalism predictions for 2024, it may be worth paying attention to 1819 News. Launched in October 2021 as a fully owned subsidiary of the Alabama Policy Institute, the site was envisioned as “an independent news organization operated by people with Alabama values.” Earlier this year, in January 2023, the site severed ties with API — “ready to stand on its own feet.”
In November, the site published an exposé of F.L. “Bubba” Copeland, a Baptist pastor and Republican mayor of Smiths Station (population 5,470), who enjoyed cross-dressing as well as reading and writing trans erotica. He engaged in both hobbies as a form of stress relief, semi-publicly, yet secretly, using alt social media handles.
When confronted by an 1819 News reporter, Copeland deleted his accounts and asked that they not be made public. Instead, 1819 took a tabloid approach — gawking over every detail of his personal and anonymized gender play. When Birmingham-based radio duo “Rick and Bubba” followed the story by mercilessly mocking Copeland, 1819 covered it like it was news. They sought and published commentary from the Alabama Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, with which Copeland’s church was affiliated.
On November 3, little more than 48 hours after the initial story broke, Bubba Copeland committed suicide.
1819 News’ leadership has defended its coverage and denied any culpability for the consequences of its reporting. A week after his death, they published a column declaring boldly: “1819 News performed responsible journalism in exposing Copeland and the destruction he chose to leave in his wake.”
I’m already on the record decrying the irresponsibility of 1819 News’ coverage of Copeland, and I won’t rehash those ethical debates here. But as a researcher of right-wing media and conservative news, I can’t help but see Bubba Copeland as a canary in a coal mine.
As local news has continued its precipitous decline, conservative entrepreneurs (and funders) have rushed to fill the vacuum. 1819 News is among a growing number of hyperlocal and state-level right-wing digital news sites. Though not necessarily coordinated, these sites represent a new and often less visible terrain for right-wing misinformation campaigns, “culture war” posturing, and doxxing efforts.
While 1819 News is independent, many of these outlets are networked — think of them as conservative local newspaper chains, but digital. Launched in 2017 as the Tennessee Star, Star News Digital Media now boasts operations in 14 states. Perhaps the biggest such chain is Metric Media, which operates in all 50 states and has been deeply researched by Priyanjana Bengani of Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
As my own Tow Center–sponsored research with Anthony Nadler and Magda Koneiczna has shown, there is little ideological or ethical consistency among national-oriented conservative digital journalists — I suspect similar variety among more locally and state-oriented outlets. Some of the conservative journalists we spoke to expressed commitments to accuracy, fair representation of differing perspectives, and setting a measured tone in debate. Others we observed, namely those associated with Breitbart News, saw their work as “informational warfare.”
It will perhaps come as little surprise that Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of Breitbart, has lauded 1819 News as a “fantastic site.” The outlet’s editor-in-chief, Jeff Poor, worked under Bannon at Breitbart, as did Star News digital media CEO Michael Patrick Leahy.
The Breitbart martial approach to news is spreading, bringing cut-throat beltway political sensibilities to flyover states and rural towns across the country. Time will tell how communities like Smiths Station respond to this new, even crueler information environment. But given that we’re headed into a contentious presidential election year, you can bet Bubba Copeland won’t be the last casualty of it.
A.J. Bauer is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama.
