Scaling down, newspapers look to Web
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will cut regional distribution and staff to retool itself for the digital age.
By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the February 23, 2007 edition
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ATLANTA - From his desk at the Jesup Press-Sentinel in south Georgia, Drew Davis saw the Atlanta Journal-Constitution more as inspiration than competition. Flipping open its crinkly pages, he says, was an invaluable glimpse at the big picture – one he'll now have to do without.
Following a trend at regional newspapers from Louisville, Ky., to Dallas, the AJC, which once proclaimed it "Covers Dixie like the Dew," is the latest newspaper to retrench. The paper decided last week to cut its circulation area in half, abandoning some 70 counties in Georgia and surrounding states to focus on Atlanta's metro area. Though it didn't have any rural bureaus to close, media analysts say circulation often dictates news coverage.
In a bid to find "audience" instead of "readers," the AJC's decision exemplifies how embattled purveyors of news are moving away from print and "realigning" news for the Internet. For the past few years newspapers around the country have seen circulation declines, advertisers bolt for the Web, and staffs being cut to maintain profits that would please shareholders.
As the shake-up engulfs the newsroom on Marietta Street, critics voice concerns about whether authoritative regional newspapers like the AJC can maintain their stature and quality with cuts to staff and papers no longer thudding on porches.
"During this terrible period of turmoil in the business and the profession, the trick is whether we can learn how to migrate newspaper journalism onto the new platforms before journalism dies," says Buzz Merritt, author of "Knightfall," a book about corporate profit pressure at the defunct Knight Ridder newspaper chain.
The areas that will no longer get the print AJC accounted for 5 percent of the paper's circulation, Publisher John Mellott wrote in a published letter to readers. He said it was costing up to $5 to ship a 50-cent newspaper to all corners of the South, a public service that had become too expensive amid shrinking profit margins.
The changes at the AJC, which says it reaches more than 2.3 million readers in print and online, also include slashing nine of the paper's 13 community editions, offering voluntary buyouts to 80 senior staffers (out of the paper's 475 employees), and reorganizing departments to put print and digital products on "equal footing."
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