Question of the Week: Black and white and read all over
July 16, 2007 at 4:26 pm by Curt Holman in Randomly NotedLast month, when I saw the opening night of Turned Funny, a play about the late, beloved AJC columnist Celestine Sibley, I overheard a conversation in the restroom of Theatre in the Square. Two men were talking (it being, you know, the MEN’S room), and one said, “So how long have you been in town?” “About 24 years.” “Yeah, so you know … I used to read Celestine Sibley and Lewis Grizzard [another longtime beloved columnist] in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for years. Now? Just look for the coupons.”
Now, I don’t want to pick on the AJC for struggling against the same journalistic trends that face pretty much all print publications, as discussed in Scott Henry’s recent cover story “Shake-up: Old media meets new realities at the AJC.”
I am curious, though, about how readers use the AJC these days. So Question of the Week wants to know, What do you read in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution? What are your favorite features? What things do you find in the AJC that you can’t find anywhere else? And have you noticed the changes?
July 16th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I read it for Jay Bookman’s and Cynthia Tucker columns, also the metro section I read sometimes but it is really lacking in coverage. I haven’t noticed any changes yet, still seems filled with information from other sources.
July 18th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Living Vent. That’s it.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
We quit subscribing to the print edition something like 6 years ago, and now only use the ajc.com portal when we want “news”.
We used a “throwaway” Yahoo mailbox to set up the initial registration, and don’t even get spammed because of it.
July 21st, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Why are you guys so intimidated by the AJC. A better question to ask: Why do people pick up the Crap-ative Loaf. (probably either to line the bird cage or find a place that offers cheap smut)
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:29 am
The day when a newspaper could serve everyone’s interests are long gone. There’s so much content out there on the web and elsewhere that newspapers are like a buffet now — you choose what interests you and ignore the rest.
Some people will read the investigations and police blotter items and ignore the sports columnists and box scores. Some will only read the comics and do the crossword and ignore Peach Buzz and Social Butterfly (an aside: I love Social Butterfly and it is TOTALLY not me at all…) Some people want the political stuff and the op-eds, while they ignore the business section.
There will never be a day that you want to read everything that’s in the AJC. And that’s not its mission, I don’t think. It has to serve many masters…
And, of course, there’s an old journalism maxim: Everyone hates their hometown newspaper.