AJC staff cuts harsher this time
July 16, 2008 at 9:24 am by Ken Edelstein in NewsThis morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution staff cuts are the second major rounds of cuts at the paper in less than two years — but this time they appear to be more painful.
In the spring of 2007, the paper offered buyouts to longtime staffers and reduced the newsroom workforce by around 80 people — to around 420. This time the reductions won’t be all voluntary and, we’re told, the terms are a bit less generous. (NOTE: Editor Julia Wallace just told me the buyout terms are the same as last year — except they’re available to more staffers. My interview with Wallace coming soon on Fresh Loaf.)
According to the press release: “The staff reductions, which will occur between August and October, will take place primarily in News and Advertising and will be accomplished through a combination of voluntary buyouts, involuntary layoffs and position eliminations.”
The company’s release says the AJC will reduce its full-time staff of 2,300 by 8 percent of the AJC’s 2,300 employees. That works out to 184 or so people.
It’s unclear what portion of that will come from the folks who actually gather information and present it to the public. Publisher John Mellott said the cuts will mainly come from advertising and editorial.
Not surprisingly, the paper’s print offerings will suffer:
* Better Health will be folded into Wednesday Living.
* Buyer’s Edge will move into Saturday Living.
* Discontinued local sections, including NorthSide, CityLife and NorthWest, as well as the daily Gwinnett news section.
No news on my earlier report that the brass was considering elimination of the Sunday @issue. We’ll be checking into that.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Here’s John Mellott’s spin to the staff.
July 16, 2008
MEMORANDUM
To: All AJC Employees
From: John Mellott
Subject: Building a Sustainable Future — Strategic Changes at the AJC
Folks,
A few weeks ago, I told you that the economic factors affecting our business have worsened.
The recession, the downturn in the housing market, as well as soaring newsprint and fuel costs, have accelerated the urgency to reduce expenses at the AJC.
I’ve talked to you before about significant change – transformational change – being required to meet the evolving needs of our readers and our advertisers and to ensure a strong, sustainable business.
At the AJC, we set a course two years ago with three primary objectives:
Expand our already robust Internet business.
Reset the business model for the printed newspaper to prepare us for the future.
Reduce overall costs.
Although the reinvention of the AJC will continue to play out in the weeks, months and years to come, we are faced with the tough reality of having to reduce our workforce today. Through a combination of voluntary buyouts, involuntary layoffs and position eliminations, we anticipate reducing our full-time workforce by about 200 between August and October. In the past two months, we’ve reduced staff in Circulation, IT and Production. Today, reflecting the decreasing size of our print newspaper, most of the reductions will take place in the News and Revenue departments. Employees in the impacted departments will meet with their management teams today.
Beginning next month, we’ll be simplifying our daily newspaper, both to conserve costs and to focus on our core mission of covering Metro Atlanta in-depth.
The most significant of the daily product changes is the discontinuation of our geographically targeted community sections. This includes the daily Gwinnett News section as well as the NorthSide, CityLife and NorthWest sections. Publication will cease for these products between Aug. 7 and Aug. 10.
While the sections will go away, coverage will continue. The daily Metro and Sports sections will expand to include more news and information from these communities. We’ll continue to have staffers located in Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb and North Fulton, filing stories both for ajc.com and the printed AJC.
Other changes, of which you may already be aware, include:
Moving Better Health features from a stand-alone section into an expanded Wednesday Living section;
Merging content from Saturday’s Buyer’s Edge section into an expanded Sunday Living section;
Strengthening the Sunday Homefinder section, and moving the HomeStyle décor and remodeling section from a limited-circulation run on Thursday to full distribution on Sunday.
Simply put, the cost to produce these sections has become prohibitive. Newsprint costs have risen 35% in the past year and, since we drive 80,000 miles a day to deliver the AJC, fuel costs have hit us hard. While we know many of our readers enjoy these sections, these moves overall are consistent with feedback from time-starved readers that the newspaper should become more focused and easier to navigate, particularly during the week.
The changes announced today, particularly those involving our employees, are difficult. However, they are necessary to sustain us in the present and position us for future growth.
We are rapidly becoming a multi-media company with strength in the print and Internet worlds:
Our total audience is larger than ever. Every week, 2.2 million adults are reading the AJC in print or online. That’s an increase of nearly 7% since last year.
In 2007, ajc.com logged more than 1 billion page views.
Our mobile traffic hit the 1 million mark – per month – earlier this year.
The Sunday AJC is a resource for more Metro Atlantans than any other single medium in our area.
We are the #1 direct mailer in the Atlanta market through AJC Direct and Valpak.
The AJC has unsurpassed brand recognition and credibility in Metro Atlanta.
We remain the largest news-gathering organization in the Southeast.
We are deeply appreciative of the work you do every day. We ask you to continue to focus on the tasks ahead in the months to come. We will get through this.
I’ve attached a letter to readers that will appear on ajc.com this morning and in the newspaper Thursday.
If you have a comment, question or suggestion, you can contact me at jmellott@ajc.com.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:24 am
What a pompous asshole. The publisher is bragging that
“We are the #1 direct mailer in the Atlanta market through AJC Direct and Valpak.” Hahaha. Why didn’t he just try to put out a decent, courageous newspaper with a smidgin of good old-fashioned storytelling? He wouldn’t be in this fix. The AJC copied everything every other large metro was doing and, like most other chain papers except those owned by McClatchy, the Atlanta paper became a timid mouthpiece for the George Bush regime during the run-up to the Iraq war.