MMMM # 571 Welcome to The Alabama Beaches, and Goodby To Accreditation..

In case you missed the column in the NY Times:

"Whenever I tell people in Berkeley, Calif., where I live, that I’m headed to the beach in Alabama, they are shocked. Most people outside of the Gulf Coast have no idea that Alabama has beaches — even though if you look at a map of Alabama, there is a part of it that looks as if it should belong to Florida."*

(W. Kamau Bell is the host of “United Shades of America” on CNN and the author of “The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell,” from which this essay is adapted.)

From a New York Times Column with this headline?

Expand Your World, Go to the Beach in Alabama

Says Tim: Great column, Mr. Bell, and the Alabama tourism people should pay to have it reproduced in newspapers (remember them?) across the country. *But look at that map again. Doesn't that huge piece of land  jutting out to the West from North West Florida actually looks like it should be part of Alabama, not the other way around. Just sayin'.

####

Few people can question your success when you get rave reviews at The New Orleans Jazz Festival, and that's what happened this month for The Alabama Shakes. From an online review by the New Orleans Times-Picayune:


"|The band's small-town Alabama roots are evident in the classic southern soul music they mine so fruitfully, without ever coming off like a novelty act. Few of their songs run hotter than a slow-dance tempo, but they all build to an urgent crescendo, as if the musicians were still trying to rise above their station. "I'm not who I used to be," is the money line from "I Ain't the Same." It might as well be the Shakes' mantra."

###

     The Chicago Tribune reported this month that A major journalism school has decided not to seek a renewal of their accreditation. It sent some shock waves through higher education.      
     But the Dean of the journalism school at Northwestern University says it was an easy decision:

"We just don't find that the review provides us with anything beyond what we already know today. It's relatively superficial, extremely time-consuming and doesn't lead us to a goal of significant improvement. It's sort of a low bar."

     Read the full story in The Chicago Tribune, which may itself be the subject of a major story today. Sinclair Broadcasting is expected to try to buy the paper and, especially, the TV stations that are part of The Tribune Company.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a longstanding regular feature of www.TimLennox.com]

                                                                 Founded 2007