AJC is losing $1 million a week
January 15, 2009 at 6:48 pm by Scott Henry in News, The Blotter
Welcome to the poorhouse.
This past Monday, AJC staffers were informed about the sudden “retirement” of their boss, publisher John Mellott. Perhaps the first question that popped into everyone’s mind was, Who retires at 51?
On Wednesday, during the newspaper’s quarterly staff meeting, employees got to meet the new publisher, one Doug Franklin, who has years of experience as a veteran newspaper executive. (Mellott, by contrast, had previously run another Cox subsidiary, Dent Wizard.)
They were told that the bottom had fallen out of the embattled paper’s revenues sometime around October, which served to confirm the widely held suspicion that Mellott had been pushed out.
Franklin also told the assembled crowd that the AJC is currently losing about $1 million every week.
From what I understand, that little news flash got everybody’s attention.
These are tough times to be in this business and the AJC isn’t alone in its predicament. Hearst announced last June that the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the chain’s most storied and most respected papers, was losing $1 million a week and counting. Earlier this month, Hearst said it would close down another major daily, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, unless it could find a buyer in the next two months.
Given the size of the fiscal crisis facing the AJC and other big-city papers, it seems unlikely that another round of staff cuts would stem the flow of red ink. The only move big enough to make a real difference at this point would be to do away with home delivery or stop publishing a print edition on money-losing days. Last month, the Detroit Free Press announced it would discontinue home delivery except on Thursday, Friday and Sunday.
It’s been rumored for months that Cox executives are looking at eliminating at least the Monday print edition. AJC honchos have previously told staff they are evaluating daily revenue figures, but a newspaper spokesperson told me that cutting back on print days isn’t under consideration at this time.
Cox put most of its newspaper chain — more than a dozen dailies and two dozen weeklies — up for sale over the summer. None have been sold yet. Also last year, the company laid off 300 employees at the Palm Beach Post, one of its three flagship papers, including about half of the newsroom. The guy who pulled the trigger? That’d be one Doug Franklin, who was then that paper’s publisher.
What’s next for the AJC? I’m not convinced that anyone — even Cox Newspapers capo di tutti capi Jay Smith — has the answer to that question. The situation puts me in mind of the scene in Citizen Kane in which someone complains that Kane’s newspaper is losing money. Kane’s answer: “You’re right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I’ll have to close this place in … 60 years”
The AJC is owned by a private trust, but ultimately controlled by family scion Anne Cox Chambers, a charter member of Forbes‘ “Richest People in America.” The story goes that Cox bean-counters are afraid to suggest to the company matriarch that they want to shit-can her hometown paper, the one her daddy bought back in ‘39. But even with a reported $13 billion in assets, how long will Cox Chambers, who’s pushing 90, want to float the family newspaper in its present form?
January 15th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Maybe Cynthia Tucker can cut back on the makeup that prevents her from looking like something on the bottom of my shoe.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
If it would cater to the people that live in this area maybe more people would read it. Let that liberal rag disappear!
January 16th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Jay Smith hasn’t been president of Cox Newspapers for several months. He was succeeded by Sandy Schwartz in May 2008.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Thanks, the AJC folks quickly corrected me on this point. But the uncertainty regarding the future of publishing remains. I’m told the current head of Cox Newspapers is none other than one Doug Franklin.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Scott, For the record, Jay Smith left Cox newspapers in May. Sandy Schwartz is the head of the Cox Media division that includes newspapers. Doug Franklin is vice president of that division, and now publisher of the AJC as well. Your characterization of John Mellott’s years at Cox — compared to Franklin’s — was really unfair. He spent probably 16 of his 22 years with Cox at the AJC in various leadership capacities, including vice president and general manager, and for nearly five years as publisher. I would think that qualifies him as a “veteran newspaper executive.”
January 16th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Maybe they meant Zimbabwean dollars, also denoted by $.
A million bucks of that is just 6 cents in U.S. currency.
No need to panic, people :)
January 16th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Isn’t it a dead heat between bankrupt CL and mega-million-losing AJC to see who goes under first? Race to the bottom!!!
January 17th, 2009 at 3:35 am
Hey Mike, if that’s really you, do you honestly think that everyone that shops at the Love Shack is a pervert?
January 18th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
The AJC is tied up in the family trust in some way that prevents it from being put on the market.
January 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Not only is the AJC tied up in the family trust,but so are the other two Cox papers not on the market (including the Palm Beach Post). Regardless of who is running the show, the newspaper industry is a scary place to be right now.
January 21st, 2009 at 9:34 am
AJC has not dealt fairly with their employees, their most valued asset. Until employees are made privy to the challenges facing the newspaper and allow them to decide if they want to continue as a member of the “AJC Titanic” money will continue to be lost and morale at an all time low. John Mellot saw the water coming in and jumped ship just in time. Having worked for the newspaper,reminds me of the old saying “Divide and conquer” and this tactic is used daily!!! Management against hourly employees, generally with the employees perpetually coming out on the losing end. Serves them right as they have interrupted and caused people great heartship with little or no concern. Telling someone that in thirty days you have no job, you’re 57 years of age and have no skills since you have worked for the company for twenty years.
The GOD of Israel sees and believe me is taking notes! 1 million per day will evolve into 2 – 3 million per day. The AJC is hoping that the Inagural Edition of 1/21/2009 will pull them out. But even the employees know that if this does not create capital, they are prepared to go!!
January 21st, 2009 at 10:07 am
“the god of israel see”???
lol, i was with u up until then.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:57 am
Mr. Henry, perhaps you should hire a fact checker before you publish an article like this with some much misinformation. Or maybe that is why no one takes CL seriously, its full of fluff and no serious reporting. Anyway, you’ve got some serious facts wrong. There was no quarterly staff meeting when Doug came to the paper. He has only been at the AJC for one week. There has been no formal meeting of any kind and no statement has been made about the AJC losing a million dollars each week, which is the headline of your story. Basically, you are a blogger and your “article” is a joke. You are attempting to spread misery and create a bad opinion of the only serious newspaper in Atlanta, without whom, I’d love to know where the Atlanta people think they would get local news from. 11 Alive!?
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Perhaps the $1M/week cash bleed is all because of Bill Heard going out of business. With 40-50 pages of Bill Heard ads that used to run every Friday-Saturday, that could explain the shortfall in itself!
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I work for the AJC part-time doing delivery, thankfully I have a regular job also.
In the 9 years I have done delivery I have seen my customer count go down greatly plus the paer itself get smaller especially as of late. At one time AJC was in most counties in the state of Georgia and even some in a few other states. Now only in the metro Atlanta area. Alot of people have already lost jobs with the paper and I as I told my dad 9 years ago when I started that the paper was a dying business. The end is not too far away I’m afraid. H.M. E.
February 19th, 2009 at 11:02 am
I cannot help but notice a certain glee in this report. Happy to see the big dog get a spanking, little dog? I think so.
February 19th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
D’accord, Grant