The AJC proves Sugg right
August 28, 2007 at 5:35 pm by John F. Sugg in NewsOK, I’m biased. I’m Sugg.
But Monday, I hinted that the news about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally being run out of office might have been timed to coincide with Michael Vick’s crash and burn in a Richmond, Va., federal court. I wrote: “I’ll bet … the cable and network news devote much more time to the dog abuser than they do to the Constitution abuser.” My only error was not including the AJC in the list.
In the Tuesday paper, Vick rated about twice as much space on the front page as did Gonzo. Inside, the Constitution abuser got about five-sixths of a page, while the dog abuser got more than 1.5 pages — plus about two-thirds of a page in the Sports section.
Yep, ol’ Rove knew how to time this one.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Oh, C’mon John! I’m all for questioning the AJC’s news judgement, but your anti-AJC bias is showing. Counting columns is not how to determine the importance of a story — and you know it. It’s where it’s played.
The AJC gave the Gonzales story, not the Vick story, the news lead — stripped across the top — with a hammer headline. Then, it jumped inside for almost a full page.
Yes, the Vick story got more real estate. Why? Because the Vick story is a very local story and more local resources are dedicated to it. Therefore, they need more space.
I was actually very pleased that the AJC didn’t give the Gonzo story a one or two column presence on the front page. It looked like the most important story of the day — which it was.
If the Vick story got more real estate in the New York Times, then you could perhaps question that. But in Atlanta, I think the two stories were balanced very well.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:59 am
I dunno, Sellout. Since I used to lay out the front page of the Constitution, back before the days of the Frankenstein creation called the AJC, I know a little something about the art. The Gonzo play wasn’t an embarrassment, although the headline wasn’t what typography experts call a “hammer.” The strip position used to be considered a feature position, mainly, although as newspapers have adopted smaller pages, it’s become a news position largely because there are fewer options on the small pages. Whatever, look at the page. It is overwhelmingly dominated by Vick, not Gonzo. If you give twice as much space to two news stories, the only conclusion is that you consider the one with the most real estate to be more important.
Beyond that, there is the repetitive habit of the AJC to underplay or simply not play bad news about Bush, his war and the assault on American liberties. The paper generally covered itself by running something, usually buried. But, say, compare the amount of space the AJC gave Bush’s AWOL from the Air National Guard (and how he got into a “champagne” squadron) with the amount of space given to the false Swift-boating charges against Kerry. Or, for that matter, the “public editor’s” declaration that the Downing Street memo that outted Bush’s “fixing” of intelligence was “not news.”
So, seeing Gonzo take second chair to Vick on the front page isn’t surprising. And it could be argued that it is an improvement over how things would have been handled before the Bushies’ total collapse.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:32 am
John, I’m not challenging that the AJC has dropped the ball in the past. They have. I worked there for quite a while (as my name suggests — I sold out).
But on the Gonzo/Vick coverage I disagree with you. Gonzales is a huge story and the AJC gave it strong play with a big headline, his picture, and a graphic. Then they provided plenty of coverage inside.
But you just can’t compare it to the Vick story. The Vick story is inherently local and there is a lot of local interest in it. The AJC is going to dedicate a tremendous amount of resources to that story and play it big. I’m looking at the page right now — Vick does dominate, but it is clearly not the most important story of the day. That’s Gonzales.
I guess it’s how you view the AJC. The AJC is NOT a national paper. It’s just not. They have finally admitted it too. They are a metro daily so the story choice and display is not going to be comparable to the Times, the Post or WSJ.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:43 am
While you two are debating how many J school grads can spin on the head of a needle, a question for you…..
Even though they do an increasingly bad job at it, the AJC is in businesss to sell papers….
They sell most of them in Atlanta……
Who do you think more Atlantans care about, Vick or Gonzalez?
I’ll be over here if you need any more completely obvious things explained to you.
August 29th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Mr. Sellout, sir, no dispute that the AJC has abandoned the field. And maybe you can argue that the media over-indulges (an under-statement) on Paris and Lindsay because that’s what the public wants (although Pew did a recent poll that indicates otherwise). A more accurate read is that the media push celebrity news, whether heiresses gone wild or quarterbacks gone bad, because it’s cheap and largely risk-free. That it’s also intellectually calorie-free no longer matters to the media lords. In some cases, there may be deeper motives. I did a column several years back based on a memo leaked to me. It was sent to Fox stations by a consultant, and urged a lot of crime news because that jacked up viewers’ emotions (the consultant highly recommended, for example, stories on gays having sex in public places because that produced “outrage”). The reason that the consultant wanted an emotional response was because highly excited people were more inclined to respond to advertising. Heat the viewers up with crime news, and they’re more likely to rush out for a Big Mac.
I don’t think that’s why the AJC overplays Vick. They’re just not that smart of sophisticated. But Vick news is cheap (after all, the AJC would seldom, if ever nowadays, invest in investigative reporting other than that involving state agencies, which are safe turf). And because it is, as you argue, “local,” that justifies endless amounts of overplay.
And that’s a whole lot safer than taking an opportunity with Gonzo to explore just how much our liberties have been eroded. With Gonzo (and Rove and Cheney) charting the way, Bush has crossed his own Rubicon from republic to empire. And due to an apathetic, lazy press, many in America still fail to grasp in the jeopardy we’re in.
The article and timeline in the AJC could hardly be called incisive. It was a quick skim over the history, a few predictable comments pro and con, and little on the damage done by Gonzo, from the torture memo to bolstering the Big Brother concept (at least as interpreted by Bush/Cheney/Gonzales/et al) of the unitary executive.
Dale, why people care is the more relevant question. If people are fed an addictive concoction of fluff, celeb news, crime etc., that’s what they’ll want, and that’s why we have such a dumbed down nation.
Oh, BTW, my column next week is on Vick, not Gonzo. Hey, we all have to move newspapers.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
John — we agree on the celebrity stuff. If I have to read about Lindsay Lohan one more time I’M gonna end up in rehab! It’s not that there isn’t a place for that in the newspaper, but it’s way out of whack.
And Dale, I believe that hard-nosed investigative stories can sell newspapers. I’ve seen it happen!
Sugg, if you write about Lindsay Lohan, I’m dropping my subscription to CL. Oh, wait….
August 29th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
You’ll be proud of me, Sellout. When I was at our Tampa paper, then called the Weekly Planet, we stripped a banner during all of the O.J. stuff that proclaimed: Not one word about O.J. inside, or something like that. We got a lot of calls and letters saying thanks.
I recall that when Gloria Estefan was injured in a car wreck, I counted more than two dozen Miami Herald reporters working on the story (I believe the actual number was 27). The Herald had drawings of her spine, every aspect of her life, etc. Yet, when the City of Miami went bankrupt, the Herald had no reporters covering City Hall — that old boring government stuff no one wants to read. The Herald learned the story by seeing it on TV news.
August 30th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Sure good investigative reporting sells newspapers. That is why so many great investigative reporters work for the AJC, USA Today, etc. My opinion is that, unfortunately, as more Americans get their news from Entertainment Tonight, we see papers and broadcast news becoming more like ET to attempt competition.
I find good investigative reporters in places like CL than in the majors. Mara and Sugg for instance.
I think that is because of the readership. I think CL readers are more hungry intellectually and think more critically than AJC readers. Not scientific I know, but the anecdotal evidence is pretty overwhelming that either AJC readers are not that bright or the editors think the readers are not very bright.
August 30th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Thank you Andi (another terriffic writer at CL and NOT at AJC) for helping (unknowingly?) with my point hahahahahaha
From Fresh Loaf;
Slow news week?
August 30th, 2007 by Andisheh Nouraee in Hot Off The Press
What’s the definition of “slow news week�
The arrest of singer El DeBarge is the second most popular news story at AJC.com.
I wonder who’s
August 30th, 2007 at 9:34 am
You’re welcome.
I’m not shocked that celebrity news is on their Most Popular list. I’m shocked that enough people know/care about El De Barge to have clicked on it.
BTW — It’s Andy.
August 30th, 2007 at 10:42 am
I know, but I refer to you in the feminine as a tribute to your headscarf photo in days past .
August 30th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I miss that picture.
My dad made me switch. He was tired of explaining to his co-workers.
August 31st, 2007 at 3:24 am
Now that’s funny.
I think it’s cool your Dad’s co-workers read your work.