Cynthia Tucker moving to D.C., and other news
April 13, 2009 at 3:13 pm by Scott Henry in News
The AJC is sending Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Cynthia Tucker to Washington D.C. to serve as the paper’s political columnist, according to the latest, seemingly hourly reorganization update from uber-Editor Julia Wallace to her beleaguered staff.
Apparently, the change has been in the works for months, but my initial reaction is that it’s an odd move for a company that seems to be shrinking its focus to the very local. Wallace’s memo suggests Tucker, who also serves as editorial page editor, will be writing just for the AJC, as opposed to the Cox News Service.
Here’s how Wallace explains the move, from a PR release:
“Our nation is facing historic changes and challenges, and decisions made in D.C. and those who make them hold great interest for our audience,” said AJC Editor Julia Wallace. “We are excited that Cynthia is embarking on a new opportunity to provide compelling content and to continue journalism’s vital function of a government watchdog. She’s known for tackling hot topics such as voting rights, immigration reform and investing in education. This is a great move for Cynthia, the AJC, and most importantly, our audience.”
And here’s the rest of the editorial page changes:
Andre Jackson, currently the AJC’s senior editor for business, federal and state news, has been named editorial editor. He will convene the editorial board and write opinion for the newspaper. Before joining the AJC, Jackson served as the business editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Ken Foskett, currently a commentary editor for the AJC, has been named the opinion editor. He will edit and manage the content that appears on the Op-Ed pages and ensure its balance of topics and viewpoints.
The pages will be anchored by content from Tucker, Jackson, Jay Bookman and the AJC’s new conservative columnist Kyle Wingfield. (Jim) Wooten and Bob Barr will contribute weekly columns, and Mike Luckovich’s cartoons will appear five times a week.
I’m guessing that the conservative wingnuts and dittoheads who constantly accuse the AJC of being a leftist publication will be over the moon at the thought that Tucker will no longer be calling the editorial shots for the newspaper.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
All you have to do is read comments on the AJC blogs and other pages to know that most readers (or at least those who post comments) will be happy to see Tucker gone from the editorial page. The opinions of AJC commenters lean so far to the right — several of them have labeled David Brooks a liberal.
My guess is that the AJC wanted to keep Tucker on staff because of the Pulitzer but decided to appease the angry right wing readership by shifting her away from the editorial page. That way they still have a prestige staffer while being able to say to the wingnuts “look! she’s gone! it’s safe for you to keep reading the AJC and attract advertisers!”
April 14th, 2009 at 12:37 am
It’s a sad day. Cynthia has been a tremendous asset to Atlanta. She will be missed!
April 14th, 2009 at 8:14 am
I left the paper in June, pre-buyout. Tucker is a great writer. Brilliant. A whole bunch of people think she’s polarizing — I think that metro Atlanta is simply polarized. She reflects it.
That said, many, many people seem to harbor deeply negative feelings about her. Tucker-hate would often be one of the first things mentioned as I worked stories in the community. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s one person in four around here.
That’s gotta get old. Run to the grocery store — one out of four people hate you. Go to the gym — one out of four people hate you. Sit in a restaurant — one out of four people hate you.
Here’s some rank, completely uninformed speculation from the cheap seats: She was leaving anyway. Tucker will probably end up as a talking head somewhere in Washington, nominally on the AJC staff. It’s easier for some people to work in a town where no one can see you coming.
Spider Jerusalem, save us.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:17 am
The fact that Cynthia Tucker is, at times, polarizing means she’s doing her job. Columnists are supposed to challenge people and get a reaction.
I worked with Cynthia for five years and think she is brilliant and amazingly informed. She didn’t have any “sacred cows” and those who argued with her needed to come with all their facts straight.
I don’t always agree with what Cynthia writes, but I value her opinion and it’s a loss to Atlanta that she’s headed for D.C. Make no mistake — she’s not going out there to be a spokesman for anyone and she certainly won’t give the Obama administration a free ride.
Good luck Cynthia!
April 14th, 2009 at 9:18 am
@George,
On top of that you’ve got Bill O’Reilly’s video producers waiting outside your house.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:56 am
I’ll miss Cynthia Tucker’s voice in the AJC.
It’s pretty clear she has her haters for more than her slightly left-leaning views–she’s a BLACK WOMAN. If, as a white man, this is obvious to me, then Ms. Tucker has done a tremendous job holding her tongue all these years. She deserves a spot in D.C. where her talent and drive will propel her into bigger and better things.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
maybe it’s just me, but the Atlanta Journal Crappy being a far right winged paper is absurd…..
there are many reasons why the AJC and Creative Loafing is in economic troubles, but main reason is both papers are very liberal biased…..
I let my subscription end with AJC for many reasons, but the main reasons are:
1- I got tired of reading op-eds that made little or no sense, it got tiring reading about how great this person is or how bad that person is (Obama and Bush)…. politically it is the same news story today that it was a week ago, nothing fresh, just same ideas and topics, just a different date on when it was written…. even Tuckers op-eds are mostly same topics, just different dates…. nothing fresh from her….
2- I got tired of phone calls asking to get the AJC…..
3- I got tired of poor college students coming to my door at 9 pm asking me to help by taking out a subscription……
As far as Creative Loafing, why waste paper? If they want to concept themselves as a eco friendly paper, then why waste paper? Why not just become an online newspaper? I see the free Creative Loafing paper litter the streets of Atlanta daily….. Is no one smart enough to convert the paper to .pdf file and let the reader choose to print the paper? Less mess and it will show how much they really are eco-friendly…..
Maybe it’s just me…. but people who are followers are sometimes not the best thinkers…..
April 14th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
What else is odd is that the AJC has been trying to position itself as a national newspaper (just look at the Political Insider).
Not sure what they are trying to do.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Jason –
I have a dream where someday people can write informed, educated editorial content without ANYONE knowing or caring about their sex or the color of their skin.
Maybe then we have all truly become equals.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Hey Jason,
Plenty of people think Jay Bookman — a white man — is just as much a unhinged lib ranter as Tucker. I think they make a point of saying that to be politically correct when commenting on one of Tucker’s columns. As in, “Whoa, Cynthia Tucker was really riffing on some bat-shit hysterical nonsense last Sunday, but that Jay Bookman is every bit the crank she is.” Why can’t we all just get along?
I don’t really have an opinion about their columns politically, but I think newspapers really need to deploy their opinion columnists on territory they can expound upon authoritatively. These folks have only limited expertise in local issues and that’s about it (well, Cynthia’s black so obviously she can speak for all blacks at all times and places) yet they’re paid well to expound on every topic under the sun, when much under the sun remains in complete professional and intellectual darkness to them. I’ve seen the phenomena demonstrated multiple times at many papers.
I mean, wouldn’t we readers be better served if Cynthia and Jay covered night court arraignments where defendants are thrown into jail without the slightest hint of due process, maybe an Atlanta city hall meeting or any real news, really? But successful journalists consider they’ve “made it” only when they can sit in air-conditioned offices staring deeply into their navels to read the solution to all the world’s problems written in the fibrous lint therein.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:46 am
If ever a person was a liability to a newspaper, Cynthia Tucker was that–a racist par excellence. To sum it up, her views were “Black, good; White, bad.” End of story. Thank God she’s gone and I don’t think it was with her permission. Her legacy will be the loss of thousands of AJC readers during her tenure.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
buh bye Cynthia Tucker
You’ll fit in much better in DC…
/justme said it well – ditto
April 16th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Yes she will. Most people in DC are highly educated with all the universities and government jobs around there. The small minded hicks like McNamy will be a thing of the past.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Cynthia is a racist and a nutcase no matter which side of the political spectrum you’re on. Maybe there’s some hope of saving the AJC now, but don’t hold your breath. That dog still has fleas even though they’ve gotten rid of one big tick.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
I am highly educated and I think she is a dufus.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Jefferson Jimmy – Please furnish an example of Cynthia Tucker’s alleged racism. All her work is online.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Hey Andi,
You ask an important question. I offer this column to you as an example of Tucker’s racism.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2008/10/29/tucked_1029.html
Tucker riffs on this quote that she attributes to Sadie Fields, Georgia Conservative crackpot: “The country I grew up in will be no more.”
The rest of the column is about how Fields grew up in the 1950s Jim Crow South, and Tucker makes a false connection between a contemporary conservative political leader and white segregationist racists long dead from 50 years ago.
This is what Tucker does all the time.
I hold no brief for Fields’ positions. However, I recognize that Fields is concerned about gay marriage, abortion, public religious displays and other issues that animate Fields’ political cohort. These ARE legitimate issues to be considered in the public square and at the ballot box. As Georgia’s leading political columnist, Tucker should encourage rigorous debate on these issues. But rather than attacking these issues one by one, and offering a spirited defense of why Tucker defends them, Tucker instead writes a column that says, “Shut Up Fields, you’re a 1950s Southern Conservative Racist!” The implication here is that anyone like Fields — ANY white conservative — is also a racist.
That, my friends, is racism, plain and simple. Tucker explicitly says here that Fields has NO RIGHT to voice an opinion on these issues because 1) she is white 2) she is a public conservative and 3) she was born before the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Granted, Fields has a choice about what political views she holds but she cannot control her race or age. So for Tucker to discriminate against her political opinions solely on that basis of race and age is de facto discrimination. I think it’s racist, in the sense that her argumentation is based solely on race/age/historical factors rather than addressing Fields’ contemporary political concerns that are by no means settled even though Tucker thinks they are.
This is what drives the animus against Tucker. No, she’s not out there screaming, “Black Power” or “Kill Whitey.” But she sure as shit is out there writing columns like this that make emotional arguments to incite rage against white conservatives rather than foment rigorous political discussion on fundamental issues that we may never resolve.
To read this tripe again over and over is tiresome. I’m tired of it anyway and don’t want to read another word. I know racism hasn’t been stamped out in this country, nevertheless, these 60s-era “Jim Crow!” arguments seem somewhat anachronistic today. It ain’t 1956 any more. We have black leaders everywhere, even president. If you’re the state’s leading political columnist and cannot offer an original interpretation of contemporary political issues, well, you should be put out to pasture. If the AJC thinks putting her out to pasture in DC is the way to go — well, the joke’s on them. They’re footing the bill. Meanwhile I’ll be sure not to read.
Andi, I’d be interested in reading your thoughts on this.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
The plain and simple is that money talks. The readership is in great decline, and was way before the economy tanked. They need new angles on things.
I cancelled my subscription 2 years ago after reading one of Tucker’s rants. Voting with your money is the way all business are judged.
April 27th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Cynthia Tucker would be best suited for a Black Panther type of newsletter.
I stopped reading the AJC years ago because of this woman (and others). Even though she’s gone, I have no plans to start again.
ps..it isn’t that I disagree with her views, and I do (all of them), it’s that she was, has been, and will always be….imcompetent.
August 8th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Tucker is as dumb and racist as it gets.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:00 am
I can’t stand Tucker’s Free Trade/Open Borders agenda. As she is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, I doubt her patriotism. She has been a destructive force for unemployed black men as her globalist agenda leaves their hopes for a good life in the toilet. She cares more for the plight of the world’s abjects than she does for the blighted lives of American citizens. She is a toady for every corporatist agenda that comes down the pike. She calls accurate researchers of American history, “tinfoil hat wearers”. The AJC is just a stepping stone for her as she climbs her way up in the power structure. Perhaps she can get her own show on CNN.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Cynthia Tucker must have done something right with enemies like the nutjob racists who’ve posted above.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:59 am
I suspect those clowns above, Jason et. al., are deeply afraid of a woman of color who speaks her mind, and does it so eloquently. It upsets their little worlds, poor things.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I never brought up Tucker’s race, atlpaddy. I suppose you would call me racist if I thought Idi Amin Da Da was not such great fellow. I think we are going to have a lot of this racist drek for the next 4 years with Obama.
Here are some questions I have about Obama:
Q. When are we going to leave Iraq and Aghanistan?
A. Racist!
Q. When are we going to rescind all the Patriot Acts and terrorism laws, which are unconstitutional?
A. Racist!
Q. Why are so many members of Obama’s cabinet from the banking industry?
A. Racist!
As for Tucker, here are some questions:
Q. Why didn’t Tucker publish editorials asking for a new investigation of 9-11?
A. Racist!
Q. Why did Tucker throw mud at McKinney for asking questions about 9-11?
A. Racist!
Q. What did she write in the policy paper on Iraq for the CFR as part of a group effort?
A. Racist!
It is so easy when you can jerk a muscle instead of thinking.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Yeah – compare Cynthia Tucker to Idi Amin. Way to win an argument.