Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: The ballad of Terry Dunn

  A cornucopia of significant political events occurred during the closing month of the year that may very well have slipped under the radar screen. That is not unusual given the fact that one of the most significant occurrences of 2012 was the demise of the daily newspapers in Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville. The state’s three former largest newspapers in the state’s three largest cities have basically gone out of business and only print a paper three days a week with stale news. The state lost some of its best journalists along with the ability to gather and report investigative inquiries into the machinations of state politics.

Cameron Smith: The Constitutional collision between the First and Second Amendments

  Since the tragedy of the Newtown shootings, politicians and pundits have argued tirelessly that either the Second Amendment is inviolable or gun ownership should be further restricted to "legitimate" functions and limited inventories.

  But the issue is about far more than guns. Our country is beginning to witness a head-on collision between the exercise of the First and Second Amendments.

Ken Paulson: After Newtown: The real toll of ‘journalistic bedlam’

  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much flawed reporting as in the news coverage surrounding the horrific school shootings in Newtown, Conn.

  Errors abounded. News organizations identified the wrong man as the shooter, reported that the shooter’s mother was a teacher at the school and mischaracterized both the killers’ weapons and his access to the school. One flawed report said that the killer had a run-in with teachers at the school the day before the massacre.

Cameron Smith: So this is Christmas?

  On December 14, 2012, Americans saw the darkness in Newtown, Connecticut. And for many of us it is hard to grasp, maybe impossible. How could a young man be so full of pain and rage that he would take so many young lives? Where are the answers? What can we do? What “serious” conversations can be had? What laws can be passed? But the cold darkness settles on our souls as a steady procession of tiny coffins are lowered into the ground.

  So this is Christmas?