• Alabama’s Biggest Newspapers Publish Essays By 200 Women On Abortion Ban

This Sunday more than 200 women wrote essays published in the three newspapers owned by the Alabama Media Group — The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register — with some of the writers sharing their own stories of receiving abortions. The package of essays was also featured at the top of the Alabama Media Group’s website, www.al.com with the headline “Alabama women speak out.”

Here is the explanation on Al.com.

• It’s time to hear Alabama’s women

Alabama was the talk of the nation last week as the most restrictive abortion ban in the country became law.
But, missing from many of those conversations were the voices of women from this state.

So, we asked them to share their opinions on being a woman in Alabama. And more than 200 of them responded within less than 24 hours.

They are women who live here, and some who have left. Those who have prayed for this very law, and those who now live in fear. Mothers, trying to understand the message this law sends to their daughters and sons. And women who are angry that a majority of men in the state legislature spoke for them.

Many chose to write about the new law, and others chose to speak more broadly about their experiences and perspectives.

We’ve chosen to fill this Sunday’s editions of the Birmingham News, Mobile Press Register and Huntsville Times with their essays.

We’re also publishing headlines for every one of them below. You can click on the headline and read each individual story. We have restricted your ability to comment on our site about their essays, wanting their voices to be heard instead of debated.

No one should ignore their voices.

Yes, it is time we had a conversation about women in Alabama -- one in which the voices of Alabama women lead the way.

A directory for all 200 of these stories is available here: https://topics.al.com/tag/Reckon%20Voices%20of%20Women/

Youtube channels like CGP Grey, Kurzgesagt, Vsauce and Nerdwriter are all incredibly popular. They bring up interesting topics, explain them fairly well, and have high production quality. But to me, something is missing. I'm not sure how to formulate my criticism, since it has nothing to do with the quality of their videos.

It feels like the mentioned channels lack depth. They give off an uncomfortable "pop-science" vibe. Pop-science isn't wrong, I have nothing against it. But they feel too "poppy". They provide sources, but the commentary is directed to people who don't read. They don't dare to use precise words, in case the audience won't understand them. I get the feeling that they make their videos for the lowest common denominator: persons who doesn't read, persons who can't google and persons who want to make no effort to actually learn.

I'd feel bad to only mention bad examples, so here is a list of high-effort video-creators with (in my eyes) good content:

Lindsay Ellis: Long-form film reviews that actually go into the details.

Every Frame a Painting: Very high-quality analyses of film directors and their styles.

3Blue1Brown: Beautifully animated math visualizations explaining multiple areas of mathematics.

Captain Disillusion: Critically debunking and deconstructing fake videos.

Historia Civilis: In-depth historical videos about Rome.

Bliss Foster: A hidden gem, with only 1000 subscribers, analysing runway shows.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what makes a good video essay. I'd also really like some suggestions for more creators to follow.