C'mon AJC

So I stopped @ the ATL airport to change planes this morning (seems like I am here weekly) and I picked up the AJC.

What did I find? Not a single word on the NCAA title game.

I understand that the game ended about 11:40 or so, but to not have a single word? Not even an early story and a "game wasn't over, go to the web" box?

That is completely shameful. Especially at an airport that is all of 15 miles from the office.

People aren't that stupid. And the AJC folks wonder why their circulation is falling.

 

Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle.

 

How early is the deadline? The game was in hand by 9:37.

 

It didn't really surprise me. I don't thing anything does anymore.

 

I think the airport might get an early edition -- remember the same thing happening with baseball not getting in once when I flew through Hartsfield. Could be wrong, but that's what I remember ...

 

Not sure about sports, but I work alongside a reporter from the AJC's metro section, and I think her deadline is somewhere around 8:30-9 p.m.

 

I hate to single them out, because they do a bang-up job on plenty of local and state things, but the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., didn't have anything either. We're about 50 miles away, but well within their circulation area. We probably get their early edition.
The game ended just before 11 local time, and the first story draft probably moved by 11 or 11:15, I'm guessing.

 

While I can't fathom why the airport can't get the final edition or something that resembles it, the part that bothered me was simply ignoring the thing completely.

It was like: "We can't get the game in this edition, so let's pretend it didn't exist."

Readers aren't that stupid. There are thousands of people who go through that airport -- and for many of them ATL is home. I'm guessing that there are people who aren't subscribers who buy the paper before they get on the plane. Give them something good and they might say, 'maybe I'll subscribe at home.' Or they might pick up the paper more often. Give them crap and that's a missed opportunity.

 

It wasn't in the edition that went out to homes or to stores first thing in the morning either.

 

Ramos has ran papers as the executive editor, he's done the Harvard fellowship and he seems, from a previous distance, as being a smart guy, but he's turned the AJC into a complete and total clusterfuck.
I'm beginning to wonder what exactly he does there and, I'd wager, that when Jeff D'Alessio was doing more of the day to day operations stuff, that something about the NCAA finals would have made the first edition.
Seems like complete and total FAIL not to get something in.

 

So am I right to assume they didn't staff the Final Four either?

 

correct