What don’t they get at the AJC?
April 25, 2007 at 5:04 pm by John F. Sugg in NewsWord is leaking out about more bad news at the Atlanta Daily of Desperately Declining Circulation. The industry monitor — the Audit Bureau of Circulations — will release its latest numbers on Monday.
Editor & Publisher reports: “According to industry sources, overall daily circulation for the six months ending March 2007 is expected to sink approximately 2.5% while Sunday will drop around 3.0%.”
One of those sources tells us that the AJC will beat the pack — and record a 5 percent drop in Sunday circulation. No word yet on what the daily numbers will show.
The newspaper industry has long been in a cycle of decimating news staffs — as the AJC did recently, pushing senior staffers (as in those who know shit from Shinola) out the door. The quality of the papers plunges, and then publishers scratch their heads and wonder why droves of readers are refusing to read the daily rags.
Expect the AJC to acknowledge any circulation losses, but gloss them with sophistry about online readership.
Meanwhile, Media Audits, which measures audiences for print and broadcast outlets, had some good news for CL. More people read us each month than read the front section of the AJC.
April 25th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
did you see the petition sent out to all the people on Outwrite Bookstore’s mailing list this morning regarding the AJC? If not, here’s what it said:
Help Protect Atlanta’s Book Review!!! To: The Atlanta Journal Constitution The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s recent decision to eliminate its book editor position-and, possibly, its book review section-is demoralizing beyond words. The AJC’s book section is one of the best-edited literary pages in the country. It provides Atlanta, which ranks #15 on the University of Wisconsin’s list of most literate cities in the U.S., with a powerful and necessary cultural dialogue. Under the astute guidance of the section’s editor Teresa Weaver, the books page has demonstrated an admirable commitment to both literature and nonfiction works which have grappled with some of America’s most complicated issues and themes. Not only has the AJC’s book section helped to champion such important writers as Edward P. Jones, William T. Vollmann, and Colm Toibin, not to mention Paul Hendrickson and Monica Ali-all of whom are now recognized as major literary voices-but it has struck a fine balance by also letting readers know, through in-depth interviews and event listings, about more popular authors who make Atlanta a stop on their book tours. If the major newspaper in a major market like Atlanta lacks a book section, then we may soon be missing authors, too, when publishers decide not to send their writers to a city where the primary forum of ideas and review is ignoring them. I am a subscriber to and/or a frequent reader of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and I want the AJC to continue publishing a book section edited by Teresa Weaver that gives Atlanta a unique, thoughtful approach to books, one that represents a diverse array of voices, and is not simply fed by wire copy from the Associated Press or the New York Times.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
NRB, go shill somewhere else. Leave it to a repeater like yourself to discount a paper’s readership by the paper’s relevance.
Regarding the notion of declining readership…yeah, I can see that happen, and yes, I read CL more often than the AJC. The local coverage is usually better with CL, even adjusting for the overly lefty bent. The Golden Sleaze issue is a state treasure, don’t drop it.
Before too long, local news will be all up to you, CL. Don’t fuck it up.
April 26th, 2007 at 7:02 am
[Note: fat-fingering the protection code results in partial loss of post. And, the error message has a typo.]
Regarding shilling: barring any multiple personality disorders, you are. Or trolling, it’s about the same, really. Or, you’ve crawled up from the other CL’s Rants and Raves section, and are pathologically disposed to spewing garbage like your original post.
For some reason, you have difficulty addressing my point, which is that CL is in prime position to take advantage of AJC’s decline and eventual demise. And, if they want to flop around and be stupid about it, they can always revert back to being mainly an entertainment paper. That will be up to CL.
April 26th, 2007 at 9:32 am
NRB’s facts are off. Most people pick up Creative Loafing for the restaurant listings, not the entertainment listings.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:52 am
It’s unfortunate that the public lost respect for many of the journalist at the AJC. But who can blame them? They stopped doing real journalism at that paper a long time ago. Reporters make up stories, manipulate and slant the truth all in the name of selling papers to keep their jobs. It’s all about getting on the front, above the fold.They don’t tell you the facts, they create stories. They’ve unfairly deprived this town of the true pleasure of paper reading. It’s a tabloid…and they should’ve been representing as one a long time ago; they may have kept some of their readership and gained others that like that type of reading. But for the serious newspaper readers, they are a joke. Reporters don’t do investigative work. They decide how they feel about an issue, ask 2 or 3 people what they think about the same issue and write a story with that. They just may ask an additional person to weight in on the issue if the first two don’t agree with their view. That’s not journalism? Most of them don’t even care about what they’re covering. Their goal is to poke holes in the most emotional topic they can get their paws on, only to rip the public trust out of it, all in the name of making the cover. Shame on them. No one has sympathy for them…not even the suits at the AJC.
April 26th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I think one thing needs to be added to this post. Daily Newspaper Circulation has been going down for a long time. In my opinion it’s not primarily due to the quality of the product but the environment in which it operates. Even if the AJC had the best writers in the world circulation would still be dropping. I know it’s dangerous to use yourself as an example but in this case I think it’s appropriate. I was previously one of the people who had a subscription to the AJC and scanned it daily and read it almost cover-to-cover on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s was as much a part of my daily and weekly routine as brushing my teeth. As I found other outlets on-line I began drifting away from the print product. In the last three years I have all but stopped reading any newspaper print products. Previously I didn’t have access to MSNBC, Blogs, CNET, etc… but now that I do the thought of spending my money and time reading the local paper seems like a waste of time.