Sayin’ goodbye at the AJC
April 6, 2007 at 1:27 pm by Scott Freeman in NewsWord is that out of the 80 AJC journalists over the age of 55 who were offered early retirement buy-outs, 40 have accepted and some of the names are huge.
According to what we’re hearing from inside 72 Marietta St., and it’s in no way official, here are some of those who are said to be leaving the paper:
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie. She has been the film reviewer at the AJC for as long as I can remember and has built a loyal following among readers.
Tom Baxter. One half of the “Political Insider†duo. Baxter takes with him 33 years of institutional knowledge.
Mike Toner. He received a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1993 for “When Bugs Fight Back,” a series that explored the diminishing effectiveness of antibiotics and pesticides.
Ron Martz. One of the paper’s best investigative reporters; however, Martz also co-led the paper’s ill-fated coverage that portrayed Richard Jewell as the Centennial Olympic Park bomber in 1996.
Jane Hansen. Another star investigative reporter who has twice been a Pulitzer finalist.
Jim Wooten. The conservative columnist.
Marilyn Johnson. The long-time fashion diva.
Mae Gentry. Most recently, she co-wrote a 3,000-word-plus story on Andy Young and his ties to oil-rich African countries.
Others we’ve heard are Sharon Bailey and Jay Croft. We also hear the paper’s newsroom is being restructured and that folks will find out next week how things are going to shake out from the exodus. But one thing they’ve been told is that everyone is going to have to interview for his or her new job.
The AJC has also recently lost other major players:
Walter Woods. Undoubtedly the best business writer in town. He’s now joined the GCI PR firm.
Virginia Anderson. Known as one of the paper’s best feature writers.
Mark Braykovich. The paper’s business editor is now PR director at the Troutman Sanders law firm.
This is a stunning amount of talent to lose with one fell swoop. The paper not only lost some of its best investigative reporters, it has apparently lost the only reporter on staff with a Pulitzer on his mantle.
We’re told morale is lower than dirt at the AJC and that the rumor is that if you’re older than 55 and didn’t take the”voluntary” buyout, you’re going to be shoved out the door anyway to make way for the “new media regime.”
If the reporters were widgets, then they’d be easy to replace. But how do you replace a loss of this magnitude? And if you’re 55 and have been a journalist in Atlanta for most of your adult life and your only sin is that you’re “too old” for the AJC, what do you do with the rest of your life?
April 7th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Well the AJC doesnt deserve to exist in the first place. I cannot wait for them to just shut the doors completely. The AJC is second only to the New York Slimes in terms of anti-americanism, hatred of whites, and pushing communism.
I’m going to assume that ‘new media regime’ would consist of the ultra far left college graduates who have been indoctrinated into the ‘hate america, we deserved 9/11, and oh yes..white people are evil’ ultra leftist elite crowd that has sprung up in droves since the 90s. In with the older, softer, somewhat leftists, and in with the new far left communist propogandists and racists.
I was hoping that Cynthia Tucker would have been on the list, but oh well. Tick tock tick tock.