AJC section changes/staffing cuts - INTERESTING UPDATE 8/26

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

They might as well just run a banner hed that reads "WE QUIT." Just be sure to have wild art of kittens underneath it.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

Who is the sports editor these days? Seems like they keep changing their minds on that one.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

This comes a day after kittens show up on the front of the Web site.

"Thanks for the service, people, and for taking our "VSP." Be sure to look at the kitties on the way out."


This must be AJC 3.0: The Slimmer Era

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

Of course, all the people who made the bad decisions to get the AJC to where it is now .... are still working. :-\

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

I get the AJC's sports section e-mailed to me M-F and I get it because of the SEC coverage and Barnhart.
If Barnhart goes, I'll drop the e-mail.
Maybe in this internet age that will have some sting to it, dropping a free service, but, really, what's the point of getting it?

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

An updated UGA driving infractions toteboard? Oh wait, you can get that at EDSBS. Hell if I know anymore. I think the suits know that papers have to have top talent in order to compete, but they don't have enough time or capital left to eat the losses until the new revenue model presents itself. So they're abandoning the fight and squeezing that last drops of blood out of the turnip before the whole thing collapses.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

Load gun. Aim at toes. Pull trigger. Sweep blown off appendages into dumpster.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

I get it, too, and I may follow your lead, Jay. The only redeeming value of it for me would be Braves coverage, but who really wants to follow them right now?

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

If the AJC loses Steve Hummer, it loses its best sports writer. It will already lose its best college football reporter in Barnhart. This used to be the section I would never miss. With these two out, I doubt I'll read it more than once or twice a week.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

Sorry to create what I am sure will be mass confusion by posting under the other Ty Webb. As someone who has never worked in newspapers, I must ask a question.

How can the South's largest paper, in the South's largest city, located in a melting pot of all 12 SEC schools not do anything possible to keep Tony Barnhart? I know economic times are tough but how many people read that paper every day just because of Tony? I visit AJC.com every morning for one read, Tony Barnhart.

This seems like the Indy Star without an auto racing writer, or the Courier Journal without a thoroughbred racing writer. Again, I do not work in the newspaper industry, just a reader. Am I way off here?

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

No, you're not way off.

Some papers might do what you suggest and try to keep their top talent, tossing a financial package or other security. That's highly unlikely, though, in today's times.

Others, seeking that financial bottom-line home run, figure they will be fine after their top talent departs because "someone else will step up." They know a Barnhart can be replaced physically.

Losing the experience, the connections and the reader base attracted to that top talent is the killer, because you won't regain 20 or 30 or 40 years of contacts, networking and relationships. The readers know that and will leave the AJC, or other papers, to follow their favorite writer to a .com gig or elsewhere.