Alabama

Alabama’s public television board would kill itself to kill PBS

Published

1 month ago

January 25, 2026

Alabama’s public television board would kill itself to kill PBS

This is an opinion column.

Where to begin with the board that decides whether you get to watch Daniel Tiger or Ken Burns’ “American Revolution,” on Alabama Public Television?

Clown car? Kangaroo court? A Monty Python sketch, as one observer of the board’s meeting put it? Sure. But that’s way too kind.

Because it’s really a Trojan Horse.

There’s no way to watch the chaos at the Alabama Educational Television Commission without concluding that the goal of those who command this board is not to make better programming, or to draw more viewers, or to help Alabama’s public TV prosper. The goal is to strip the Alabama airwaves of anything that smells more like diversity of opinion than White House fan mail.

“Removing PBS here would be a major statement as to the direction Alabama Educational Television intends to take,” Board Chairman Ferris Stephens wrote to others at APT in October, when the move to rid APT of its most viewed programming came to light. “Because the state has benefitted WAY more from Trump being happy with Alabama and our political leaders are NOT interested in pulling on Superman’s cape over PBS programming.”

He said the quiet part out loud.

In the treatise obtained by AL.com, Stephens cited President Trump’s disdain for PBS, and its purported “lack of journalistic standards,” meaning it continues to question authority when Stephens and cronies would prefer a pack of fawning kits.

So burn it to the ground, and blame it all on PBS, the company that brought you “Sesame Street,” “Frontline,” “Nature,” “Nova” and that dastardly “Antiques Roadshow.” Blame it most of all on “PBS Newshour,” that news show that corrects its errors and abides by traditional journalism methods, but tries to reach audiences of all hues and faiths, thus becoming the wartiest witch in the hunt.

The thing is, PBS — “Austin City Limits,” “Finding Your Roots” — is the reason most people who support APT open up their wallets. Donations for the current year are expected to be about $4 million, or about 35% of the budget, according to their own estimates. Those donations give viewers access to Passport and all the PBS programming. Listeners and viewers who gathered at the meeting in Birmingham on Tuesday said they would withhold their money if that programming goes away, as they did in Huntsville when this same board made its radio station, WLRH in Huntsville, drop NPR.

This is not oversight. It’s a death panel.

And this board. Just consider this board, with its strong-arming chairman for life, a member who was appointed before the World Wide Web was a thing and another who lives on a continent 5,000 miles away.

Member Bebe Williams was appointed by Gov. Guy Hunt in 1991, a year and a half before the governor was indicted, two years before CNN propelled cable news to prominence in the first Gulf War. Williams is serving in her 35th year, with a term set to expire in 2033.

Board member Tijuanna Adetunji, who currently resides in Ghana, was appointed to the board 11 years ago but according to board minutes had not attended a meeting since April of 2023 until Stephens and board member Les Barnett – himself a member for 26 years now – began to push for the break from PBS last fall. She attended virtually in the fall and this week and supported them.

Stephens was appointed to the board by Gov. Bob Riley in 2009. He became chairman two years later and has held that position for 15 years, purging those who disagreed with him from the start.

He is likely to keep that job far longer. He took steps to assure it this week.

On Tuesday, out of the blue for some board members, Stephens informed the board that he had hand picked new members for the commission’s nominating committee, as well as the nominating committee to the Alabama Educational Television Foundation Authority, a related board that helps APT raise money from donors.

The members would be himself, Barnett, Adetunji and William Green Jr., a newbie with only six puny years on the board. Which pretty much assures Stephens will hold on to power, at least internally. For another chair to be considered, it would have to go through that committee.

He rammed through a vote for former Alabama Sen. Dick Brewbaker for the foundation board, over the objections of member Pete Conroy, who said he had nothing against Brewbaker but didn’t know him.

When Conroy tried to nominate another candidate later, Brewbaker blocked it, saying it had to go through the nominating committee.

“I would just ask that we do have a chance to actually meet them before …” Stephens began, but the crowd’s jeering drowned out the rest of his hypocrisy.

I asked Stephens after the meeting about his contradictory arguments. How he could stifle Conroy’s concerns while using the exact same arguments to justify his own.

“There’s no contradiction. There’s no contradiction,” he said, as if repeating it would make it true. “I just assumed everybody knew him (Brewbaker).

None of those items were on the agenda, and neither was one that brought cheering to the crowded meeting room. It would formally allow public comments at future meetings.

Stephens and Barnett voted against, saying listening to the public took too much time, it wasn’t the people’s place, and commissioners shouldn’t have to listen to the same arguments over and over.

But it passed, and now the board that runs Alabama Public Television has to listen and watch things they disagree with. Which is sort of a victory.

I asked Johnny Curry, a longtime GOP lawmaker and former head of the Jefferson County Republican Party who sits on the Alabama Educational Television Foundation Authority, if there were rules to this place at all.

“The rules are like sandlot baseball,” he said.

Stephens and his allies in these meetings seem to rationalize most of their decisions by citing the “Alabama values” Gov. Kay Ivey mentioned in a letter she wrote last year when the controversy began.

“I have worked hard to promote and defend Alabama values – from standing up for the sanctity of human life and our rights to religious liberty and standing against DEI, CRT, and boys playing girls’ sports” the governor wrote in the second paragraph of that letter. “For the sake of our people, it is imperative that APT’s programming align with Alabama values.”

What they don’t talk is the first paragraph, when the governor clearly says a disaffiliation from PBS “should be undertaken only after a thorough planning process and only with a thorough understanding of public opinion.”

Or the paragraphs that come later.

“The Commission should thoroughly survey Alabama voters to ensure their voices are heard,” insisting that a survey of voters be done by a reputable firm and be conducted over a sustained period of time.

“If the commission is going to disaffiliate from PBS, it should do so in response to trends in voter opinion, not just an isolated snapshot,” she wrote.

The rules on this board really are like sandlot baseball. If you’re playing to lose.

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Alabama

Alabama ‘Fully Aware’ of Losing Streak to Tennessee Ahead of Road Rematch

Published

11 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Alabama ‘Fully Aware’ of Losing Streak to Tennessee Ahead of Road Rematch

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Losing to a rival almost always hurts more than falling to another opponent during the regular season. Years of hatred, unforgettable moments and tradition boiled up into one game, and the delivery is nowhere to be found for one team.

No. 17 Alabama has won seven straight games and is eyeing an eighth on Saturday on the road against No. 22 Tennessee. This is the second time that Crimson Tide will face the Volunteers, as Alabama lost in Tuscaloosa in January.

The loss a month ago to head coach Rick Barnes and company brought UA’s losing streak against Tennessee to five games. It’s the first time that the Tide has dropped this many games to the Vols since 1968-72 — a streak that came two years before Alabama head coach Nate Oats was born (Oct. 13, 1974). It’s why Oats is not treating Tennessee as a faceless opponent or like any other team the Tide has faced.

“Every year we’ve been here they’ve caused us issues,” Oats said during Friday’s press conference. “Our players, are fully aware that we’ve lost five in a row. They’re fully aware of what happened out there last year. I’ve taken ownership for my share of what happened up there last year.

“We’re fully aware that they beat us at home. We haven’t lost very many home games in conference, period, really since we’ve been here, and they handed us one this year.”

After falling to Florida on Feb. 1, Alabama moved down to the ninth spot in the conference standings, and the college basketball world started to question whether or not the Crimson Tide would be a threat in the postseason.

But a switch flipped after that loss, and the current winning streak has Alabama tied for the No. 2 spot in the SEC standings. Everything seems to be trending in the Tide’s direction, as there are only three games remaining on the schedule.

Oats is in his sixth year as Alabama’s head coach. Following the retirement of former Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl during the offseason, Oats became the second-longest tenured coach for one team in the conference. The coach in front of him: Tennessee’s Rick Barnes, who has held his position since the 2015-16 season.

Both Alabama and Tennessee have finished conference play in the top-4 of the standings since the 2022-23 season. The Crimson Tide was the regular-season and SEC Tournament champions in both the 2020-21 and 2022-23 seasons, while the Vols won the 2022 SEC Tournament and were the conference’s regular-season champions in 2023-24.

“So our guys know, but at the same time, we’ve got a lot of respect for how they play and what they do. We’ve got to come in with a healthy amount of respect for them, but we got to try to win this game.

“There’s a lot riding on this game. What happens in Arkansas-Florida, you’re either going to be all alone in second place if we could get a win, or you’re going to be one game out first. If you take a loss, now you’re in danger of losing a top-4 seed. They’ll be tied with us if we take a loss.”

“So there’s a lot riding on the SEC standings in this game here. They know that. They know what our struggles against Tennessee have Been as well.”

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Alabama

Selmont seeks incorporation to become independent Alabama city

Published

23 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Selmont seeks incorporation to become independent Alabama city

SELMONT, Ala. (WSFA) – An unincorporated community in Dallas County is seeking to establish itself as an independent city, hoping to gain control over local government services and community priorities that have long been managed at the county level.

Selmont, located across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma, is home to approximately 2,700 registered voters and carries a significant place in civil rights history.

The community was the site of a pivotal moment during the Bloody Sunday march in 1965, when roughly 600 civil rights marchers were tear-gassed by Alabama state troopers, including 13-year-old Mae Richmond.

“People ask us ‘Were we afraid?’ No. We were not afraid. We were not afraid, first of all, even as a 13-year-old child, we knew that we were doing what God was permitting us to do,” Richmond, a 60-plus year resident of Selmont, said of the historic event.

As an unincorporated community, Selmont lacks its own municipal government. Residents must contact the Dallas County Commissioner for public works services. It’s a situation that community leaders say limits responsiveness to local needs.

Erice Williams, a community activist leading the incorporation effort, said the change would fundamentally alter how the community operates.

“It would give us decision power and allow us to get funding that we can allocate to our own community that we can make our own priorities be clear and resolved at the same time,” Williams said.

Williams also highlighted the strain on current county services. “Connel Towns (county commissioner) is the only person we have to call, and the resources and time that he would have to serve our community is very limited,” he said.

Operation Selmont, the group spearheading the incorporation effort, is currently gathering signatures on a petition to present to the local probate judge. The organization needs approximately 500 signatures to move forward with the incorporation process and has already collected 40 percent of its goal.

The next meeting for Operation Selmont is scheduled for March 6 at 6 p.m.

For longtime residents like Richmond, incorporation represents an opportunity to ensure Selmont’s future and maintain its identity for generations to come.

“That we will be able to teach and train our children to give them the strength that our foreparents had that they will be able to stand up for justice and for equality,” Richmond said of her hopes for the community’s future.

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Alabama

Report: Sen. Tuberville, Speaker Ledbetter uniting behind proposal to close Alabama party primaries: ‘Democrats shouldn’t be voting in our elections’

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Report: Sen. Tuberville, Speaker Ledbetter uniting behind proposal to close Alabama party primaries: ‘Democrats shouldn’t be voting in our elections’

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville and Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter (R-Rainsville) announced support on Thursday for closing Alabama’s primary elections to only registered members of each party.

Alabama does not currently have party registration. Instead, voters choose a party ballot at the polls. State law also bars voters from switching parties between a primary and that cycle’s runoff.

Tuberville (R-Auburn) said during a press call with in-state reporters that Democrats have no place voting in Republican elections in Alabama.

“There’s a lot of talk about this,” Tuberville said.
“I’ve spoken with Speaker Ledbetter and we agree that we have to do something about Democrats voting in our elections. They shouldn’t be doing it. I know he’s moving a bill forward very very soon as we speak, and if we can get that done, I think it’s gonna help the cause of the conservative Republicans in the State of Alabama.”
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Under Alabama’s current open primary system, any registered voter can participate in either party’s primary without declaring a party affiliation.

Voters simply choose which party’s ballot they want at the polls. Alabama does not require partisan voter registration, meaning residents register without declaring themselves a Republican or Democrat.

The push to close the Republican primary is not new.

The Alabama Republican Party (ALGOP) passed a resolution in 2022 calling on the Alabama Legislature to require party registration before voters can participate in a party’s primary, but the Legislature did not act on it at the time.

Closing the primary would require changing state law under Ala. Code 17-13-7, which governs the existing open primary system.

“I am proud to work with Coach Tuberville to begin the process of closing Alabama’s primary elections,” Ledbetter said in a statement on Thursday after lawmakers adjourned from the 17th day of the 2026 legislative session.

“Alabamians have made it clear that this is the direction our state needs to begin moving in, and I am committed to doing just that. Whether it was passing school choice, banning DEI, or making Alabama the most pro-life state in the nation, the Alabama Legislature has consistently delivered on its commitment to conservative governance, and we will do the same on this issue. We are in the process of reviewing the proposals before us and are eager to get the ball rolling.”