Birmingham

WBRC morning anchor Rick Journey announced today that he is leaving the television business.

“For some time I have thought about using the skills and contacts developed through a career in journalism to enter a new stage of my life,” he said in a statement. “I am blessed to have those opportunities before me.”

Journey has worked at the Birmingham Fox-affiliate for 20 years, and has been the morning anchor for the past 13 years. His last day at the anchor desk will be June 29, but he will continue to contribute to WBRC on television and online, according to a station statement.

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“Follow along with this,” Jimmy Kimmel told his audience on Thursday night, “because you’re about to see a man dig himself into hole, after hole, after hole.”

Kimmel couldn’t contain his laughter as he played a video of veteran WBRC weathercaster Mickey Ferguson having an awkward exchange with two young girls outside of a Walgreens (video above).

In an interview with NPR, veteran meteorologist James Spann, who has become something of a severe weather pundit during his time at ABC 33/40, highlighted the limitations he and his colleagues face when covering tornadoes.

“We’re not as good as we think we are, and we have to accept that and work on it and be better, and admit the warning process has some work to do,” Spann said, referring to the public’s over-reliance on typical tornado warnings, such as sirens.

Spann has long been an outspoken critic of the warning process. Read more

Roy Hobbs, whose decades-long career as an anchor and reporter was derailed by drug abuse, opened up about his struggle with addiction in a recent interview with Birmingham CBS-affiliate WIAT.

After working as an anchor at WAGA in Atlanta and ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Hobbs was arrested in April 2010 for possession of crack-cocaine.  In the wake of Whitney Houston‘s death, Hobbs felt compelled to share his story with WIAT (video inside). Read more

After publicly criticizing Diane Sawyer and ABC News for inaccurate reporting on the Monday edition of “World News,” WBMA chief meteorologist James Spann was featured on the program last night in a segment about the tornado warning system.

The segment included reporting on how residents were able to get to safety before the tornadoes — with Sawyer noting “it could have been far worse” — but did not include acknowledgement or clarification of the previous night’s report, which stated that residents had “no warning” of the tornado threat.

ABC reporter Steve Osunsami said Alabama residents knew what to do “because the warnings came early” (watch above). Read more

James Spann, chief meteorologist at Birmingham ABC-affiliate WBMA, is criticizing Diane Sawyer for her report on the Alabama tornadoes on yesterday evening’s “World News.”

Spann took to his blog to criticize Sawyer’s claim the pre-dawn tornadoes “took the South by surprise last night, no warning” (watch above).

“NO WARNING? Get a clue,” Spann wrote. “This event was forecast days in advance, and the average lead times for the entire event were 20 to 30 minutes. That is plenty of time to get to a safe place.” Read more

After a five-year absence, Maggie Poteau is returning to Birmingham’s WBMA to co-anchor the morning show at the ABC affiliate.

Poteau was the morning anchor from 2004 to 2006. “We are very excited to have Maggie back on our team,” WBMA president and general manager Mike Murphy said in a statement. “She brings a lot of experience and energy to our morning newscasts.”

Poteau will replace Pam Huff — her former morning co-anchor — on “Good Morning Alabama.” Huff, who has been on the morning show for more than 12 years, will anchor a new 4 p.m. show that will replace “The Oprah Winfrey Show” this fall. Poteau will co-anchor with Yenu Wodajo, who has been the WBMA morning anchor since 2008.

In the aftermath of a tornado outbreak that killed more than 300 people this spring, veteran meteorologist James Spann is calling for an overhaul of the NWS tornado warning system — and a new commitment to weather coverage across local regions.

In a post on ABC 33/40‘s weather blog, Spann writes that tornado sirens, which have an 80-90 percent false alarm ratio, are outdated and overused. “Getting these kind of warnings over and over and over again totally create an ocean of people that won’t be paying attention when a real tornado emergency is in progress,” he writes. “The cry wolf syndrome is very real, and very dangerous.” Read more

ABC 33/40 captured more than just frightening live images of severe weather this week, as a tornado system ripped through Alabama. They also uncovered this story (above) about a puppy that was discovered buried underneath rubble. Auh!

“If you can show a live tornado with a camera, there’s no doubt that people will react in a more urgent way,” said ABC 33/40 meteorologist James Spann, whose in-depth coverage of Alabama’s brutal tornadoes has been admired by newsers across the country this week.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Spann said that live video of the tornado system, much of it shot by volunteers, made the difference in ABC 33/40′s (WCFT-WJSU-WBMA) coverage. Here’s the Times:

Live video of tornado touchdowns is a relatively new phenomenon, one that has been made possible by extensive mobile access to the Internet. In Birmingham, WBMA recruits and trains volunteers to follow severe thunderstorms and act as spotters, complete with dashboard cameras linked via the Internet to the station.

“They’re just like an extension of what we do,” Spann said of the volunteer videographers.