Atlanta to cut 80 newsroom jobs

None of those papers have a staff large enough to make a transition to a 20+ hour newscycle. It's that simple.

 

Relatively speaking, the AJC is a small component of Cox, just with a high profile.

If I need a blood transfusion, I'm not going to want the doctor to look at my bad knee first. The AJC is the optimal place to effect change, not Waco.

And if trimming fat means a massive reduction of management layers, then by all means, start trimming.

 

Maybe. I just remember that Knight Ridder would try out the wacko ideas on Boca Raton before inflicting them on an important paper. Then they sold the lab rat. I couldn't understand why, as it made perfect sense to me to try all the weird shit in Boca instead of screwing up Miami or San Jose or Detroit.

 

Frank, I assume you're referring to the 25/43 project in Boca. DyePack would have loved that one.

 

Indeed. For those too young to remember, 25/43 was an attempt in the early 1990s to lure readers ages 25-43 by giving them not much to read! Very short stories. No jumps. Lots of graphics. Happy news. Didn't work, but amazingly some people forget that.

Good report on it here:

http://list.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9710a&L=aejmc&T=0&P=7113

 

Some of those people must be working at our shop.

 

thanks frank. nice read.

 

It's one thing to say you aren't going to ship product to Dothan, Ala., or Sumter, S.C. It's an economic reality, although it ought to force them to retire their claim as "The South's Standard Newspaper." But it seems borderline sinful to sound retreat from more than half the counties in their home state. After decades of looking down their noses at the Other Georgia, now they've decided they're too good to even bother covering them.

Turns out that was optimistic. According to the AJC itself, Augusta is gone, as are Savannah, Columbus and points south. And its not like they are beefing up in the suburban counties. Their zoned editions are going from 13 to 4. Atlanta proper doesn't even get a zone to itself, it has to share one with DeKalb County. But north Fulton County (read rich white folks) still gets one all to themselves. The southside counties where diversity is more than just a trendy buzzword? Out.

But hey, civic responsibility is just something for Cynthia Tucker and the gang over in editorial to blather about. It doesn't really mean anything when there's, you know, money at stake.

 

There's nothing shakier than the little guy in associations based on unequal sizes and distributions of might (i.e., your average big newspaper). I don't blame the power brokers. These people know what they want, and they will have to be upfront about their intentions and bargains at some point. You enter into the deal knowing that. I just wish the career journalist could stay whole and not be forced into compromise. If we co-opt without maintaining some distinctness, we're lost.

 

Dixie, I see what you're saying, but we should be careful to heed the distinction between covering an area and selling papers there. One is a newsroom function, the other a circulation function. It's not as if the AJC had allocated huge numbers of newsroom resources outside the metro area to begin with. If they're going to read it online anyway, why go to the expense of delivering the paper there? If it loses money, you're not going to keep newsroom jobs by continuing to do it.

 

Oldies but goodies like Frank and myself can recall those fucked up days.
Here's the AJC thing in a nutshell and this is off the boots pipeline so you know there is truth. This had been coming on for some time. People were getting an inkling about it but didn't think it would hold true. The bottom line is that people aren't reading the AJC paper. They're reading it on line. The problem is the AJC, like other publications, isn't making any money with the online product.
As a side note, I believe that this move online will continue with many papers, especially the larger ones. I think this could benefit smaller papers because that will give them a slight edge to go after stories that the bigger papers deem as "too small."
At any rate, look for other papers to follow suit. We all know how much of a copy cat industry this is.

 

So how do publications make money online if that is the way things are going?

Simple question. Complex answer.