InkBlots

Dothan Eagle managing editor and regional Media General news czar Ken Tuck bemoans the lack of insured drivers in Alabama, which ranks no. 2 in the nation for most uninsured drivers.

Fortunately, Bama and Tuck are spared the ultimate embarrassment ofnamed  the state being the “worst” thanks to — you guessed it — Mississippi, which Tuck can’t resist kicking in the shins in his column on the topic.

The Louisiana-Mississippi Associated Press Managing Editor’s Awards were given out Friday in Jackson. A few of the roundups from state papers…

• The Hattiesburg American picked up 10 awards.
• The Sun Herald earned six awards.
• The Natchez Democrat won a whopping 28 awards, including the coveted FOI prize.

The Commercial Appeal spills ink all over self-described Memphis millionaire Michael Bourne´, who’s stunning fall from free-spending, free-wheeling was completed in near record time.

Named by the Memphis Business Journal just six short months ago to the paper’s Top 40 Under 40 list, Bourne´ now faces foreclosure on his home and a genuine Ginuwine lawsuit, while a dwindling list of supporters is reduced to defending what’s left of his reputation in the blogs.

Journal Publishing, mothership of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, has acquired the New Albany News-Exchange and its Website..  The sale was effective April 30, 2008.

Heretofore, the News-Exchange, founded a couple years back, was being operated by a few refugees from the New Albany Gazette, including its former publisher Jerry Shiverdecker and editor J. Lynn West.

Mississippi native William Raspberry, longtime political columnist, and Jerry Mitchell, Clarion-Ledger pitbull, were on NPR Wedneday morning discussing the results in North Carolina and Indiana, as well as where the Presidential campaign is headed.

• A traffic warrant led to the arrest of a man suspected of stealing a Mississippi Press vending machine from a local gas station.
• The Hattiesburg American asks DAs around south-central Mississippi if they’re still using Dr. Steven Hayne to perform autopsies, in spite of the allegations against him to come out over the past several months. Reason Magazine — which cites a questionable circulation factoid in its article — is interested, for whatever reason.
• Speaking of the American, it has introduced a new Website design akin to Gannett sibling, The Clarion-Ledger.
• The carcass of a what is believed to be a pygmy killer whale that washed ashore near the Chevron Refinery in Pascagoula a month ago was being held for study by the Institute of Marine Animal Studies in Gulfport.
• We’re a little behind on this one, but The Magee Courier has introduced a Website.

Longtime University of Southern Mississippi journalism professor Art Kaul, 62, died Tuesday afternoon at his home in Hattiesburg.

The vice chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians has issued a statement to clarify the facts surrounding an altercation last month with a male student at a community college after going there to retrieve his minor-age daughter from a dorm room.

Assault charges were filed against Vice Chief Eddie Sam and subsequently dropped in the March 31 incident at East Mississippi Community College in Scooba, according to Kemper County authorities.

Sam contacted The Neshoba Democrat in an effort to set the record straight after reports he characterized as malicious attacks appeared in another publication.

A Tribal Council resolution earlier this month to remove Sam based on the allegations failed.

The Democrat article reports that when Sam made an appeal to the other publication, the upstart Philadelphian newspaper, he had to make his case not only before the editor of that paper, but also to the mayor of Philadelphia and the local economic development agency head.

Tom Collins, owner of Tupelo Engraving and Rubber Stamp and a former executive for Hancock Fabrics, has accepted the position as general manager of The Pontotoc Progress. He succeeds Lisa Bryant, who moves to the Daily Journal mother ship as advertising director…Renae Alexander is the new advertising director of The Meridian Star…Heather Freret has returned to the Stone County Enterprise in Wiggins as publisher after leaving the paper in 2007.

From the AP: “Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said he’s unhappy about corporate ownership of news organizations in the United States.

“Something that worries me more so than the war and Iraq and money in politics is freedom of the press,” Hood said. “Is our press free anymore? The corporate ownership of the press nationally is a concern to me.”