Fresh Loaf

Welcome to CL’s annual catalog of impotence: the 11 Least Influential. You’ll meet folks who tried to achieve an ambitious goal, but fell short; people who’ve devoted themselves to a personal mission in near-total obscurity; and ordinary Joes who can’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Every day until the full issue hits the streets on Nov. 11, we’ll bring you a new story of failure — some noble and heroic, others abject and pathetic.

We begin with one of the latter. Enjoy.

Subject: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Failing: Can’t nut up enough to endorse candidates

One of the perks of being the sole daily newspaper for a major metropolitan city is that you can tell folks what to do. Where to eat. What movies to see. What books to read. And who to vote for. That goes double for a paper with a storied history of taking strong editorial stands on the issues of the day, such as Ralph McGill’s impassioned columns blasting segregation.

But what if, in giving an opinion — even a modulated, rational, well-argued one — you happen to say something some people don’t wish to hear. Horrors! We can’t have that. What if readers stopped subscribing to the paper? Oh, yeah, they’re already doing that… Perhaps it’s best to remove any opinion, insight, conclusions or point of view from the paper altogether.

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1. AJC moving to metro Atlanta’s real downtown (The daily will be abandoning its intown digs for a new, OTP office. Yep.)

2. Lisa Borders up in latest mayoral poll (Though Councilwoman Mary Norwood still holds the lead, Council Prez Borders appears to be making progress. Someone’s pissed.)

3. Creative Loafing Inc. and its largest creditor will duke it out next week (The fate of the six-newspaper chain will be determined at an equity auction TOMORROW. Stay tuned.)

4. Threesome assault defense, ‘Ah jest wanted to watch’ (Total weirdness.)

5. Troy Davis deserves hearing, says Supremes (Somebody — the U.S. Supreme Court, no less! — is finally granting the longtime death row inmate a hearing on his innocence claims.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Obviously, by leaving its Marietta Street headquarters and heading north, the AJC is leaving the City of Atlanta’s Downtown business district.

But before one declares the AJC is abandoning the city, ask yourself a question: what city?

Perimeter Mall area is actually more of a city center to more metro Atlantans than the area we actually call Downtown.

Take a look at Colliers Spectrum Cauble’s most recent report on Atlanta’s office market and you’ll see there are as many offices above the top-end of I-285 as below. The office submarket to which the AJC is moving, Central Perimeter, has more office space than either Downtown, Midtown or Buckhead. It’s been that way for a long time.

Commerce isn’t the only thing that defines a downtown, but it’s arguably the single largest factor. Like every other society in the developed world, the geography of our lives is determined by the geography of our livelihoods. People generally want to live close to where they work. People shop, go to school and recreate close to where they live. Remember, 90 percent of the people who call themselves Atlantans live in the suburbs.

The AJC’s new Perimeter office will be closer to where more Atlantans sleep, work, eat and poop than Marietta Street. Like it or not, Perimeter is the real center of town.

I’m not saying I approve of the AJC’s move. I’m suggesting we acknowledge a reality about our city: Downtown isn’t downtown.

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1. Hundreds of fish die in Piedmont Park’s Lake Clara Meer (Turns out it was more like thousands of fish that perished, reportedly from dissolved oxygen. Who knows what Sir Paul thought?)

2. AJC may abandon Marietta Street (Today we learned the paper’s new HQ will be in the action-packed ‘burbs come next June.)

3. Why I want a public option (Andisheh Nouraee clearly states why there needs to be an alternative to private health insurance.)

4. Columnist’s solution to gay sex in parks? Attack dogs. (Marietta Daily Journal resident curmudgeon enlightens us with his wonderful idea of how Marietta City Council should send gays “back to Atlanta where they belong.”)

5. Fulton, Forsyth ban chaining your dog (Beginning Sept. 4, dogs in Fulton County cannot be chained or tethered to a fixed object unless held by an attendant or by the owner.)

(Photo by Thomas Wheatley)

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AJCers, meet the new boss

While we at CL are anxiously waiting to see who’ll own this newspaper by the end of next month, the folks at the AJC are now already on their third publisher this year.

Here’s the part of the release that went out minutes ago:

Cox Media Group announced today Michael Joseph is being promoted to publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), effective immediately. Joseph currently serves as the AJC’s general manager and president. He will continue reporting to Doug Franklin who will continue his role at Cox Media Group as executive vice president.

Actually, none of this should come as a surprise. You may recall that, back in January, AJC employees were told that their longtime publisher, John Mellott, had suddenly “retired” and that Franklin was now their new boss.

Franklin had already earned a reputation as Cox’s designated hatchet man, a downsizing specialist who’d overseen mass staff cuts at the company’s other two flagship papers, the Dayton Daily News and the Palm Beach Post. And he wasn’t coy about why he’d been sent to Atlanta. In his very first staff meeting, he told employees that the AJC was losing $1 million a week and he was there to stem the tide of red ink.

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The AJC has sponsored the region’s premier 10K race for 33 years, branding it the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race long before the two newspapers had formally merged. And it’s always been on the Fourth of July. Always.

But apparently not this year. From the front page of today’s AJC:

Agent: Racer not guilty of elbowing

Tadese Tola, the first person ever disqualified from the AJC Peachtree Road Race, wasn’t trying to elbow anyone. He was merely running inefficiently.
Tola’s agent, Hussein Makke, on Monday disputed claims that Tola deliberately elbowed Boaz Cheboiywo in a battle for fourth place in Sunday’s race.

The 4th was, of course, Saturday, as was the AJC Peachtree Road Race. But I guess when you own an event, you can say it happened any time you like.

I’m aware I’m throwing a stone from my own glass lean-to, but I can’t help but think such small but significant mistakes are the result of editorial downsizing. Fewer sets of eyes means more errors will find their way into print — and online.

At least that’s the excuse I’ll use the next time I screw up.

UPDATE: I orginally called the AJCPRR a marathon because I’ve never paid it the slightest bit of attention and because I didn’t have adequate editorial supervision. See what I mean!

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1- AJC Redesign: Your thoughts? (Scott Henry makes a few observations on the new print design of our dear ol’ daily – as do some of our readers. Xanax would be a subscription booster).

2- Rep. John Lewis arrested at Darfur protest in D.C. (When the news reminds you of the real news, you need to work on your attention span – I’ll include myself in that bunch).

3- WSB: Georgia swine flu case confirmed (We’ve officially joined the swine flu pandemic).

4- Clever headline about N. Ga. drug bust elicits giggles (When “cops deal blow to Mexican drug cartels,” has it hit the fan?).

5- William Mize granted stay of execution from Ga. Supreme Court (The former Ku Klux Klan leader had sought the death penalty after being convicted of killing a fellow klansman).

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution debuted its redesigned Sunday edition on May 2. In an example of Great Moments in Awkward Timing, that same day’s installment of the “Pearls Before Swine” comic strip commented directly on trends in the newspaper industry (with which we can sympathize). I saw the strip in question online first, and checked the AJC to see if they actually ran it in their Sunday funnies. Turns out, they did. Here it is:

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1. AJC redesign infomercial — OMG (Daily paper’s feel-good promo sounds suspiciously like a pharmaceutical ad.)

2. Three people killed in Athens, Ga., shooting (As of now, a UGA-professor-turned-suspected-triple-murderer is still on the loose.)

3. NORML now has semi-legal status in Georgia (But the party was short-lived.)

4. AJC scooped by local blogger! (Atlanta Unfiltered scores a once-in-a-lifetime nod from the notoriously attribution-stingy daily.)

5. BREAKING: Atlanta Steam relocates, exurban perverts weep (Lingerie-wearing football team runs from Atlanta. Oh my.)

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Awash in red ink, the AJC recently cut a third of its news staff

Much like the overall economy, the Fourth Estate seems to be in free-fall. Advertising revenues have dropped 23 percent over the past two years. Newspaper stocks are close to worthless. Big-city papers across the country have slashed staff, cut coverage areas, closed bureaus, quit publishing on certain days and even shut down altogether.

Far from being an exception, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is among the hardest hit. For reasons that have been the subject of fierce speculation, the AJC has suffered from one of the steepest declines in paid readership among major dailies. And earlier this year, in prefacing the need for cutbacks, its new publisher revealed that the AJC was losing $1 million a week, which placed it in the company of the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle and other papers perilously close to going belly up.

That’s the background for last week’s sweeping downsizing and reorganization of the AJC newsroom. The paper is in the process of shedding 78 veteran editors, reporters and other journalists through voluntary buyouts — its third such program in three years — and another dozen or so graphic artists, news researchers and customer care employees as a result of a round of post-buyout layoffs. Two weeks ago, more than 40 part-time newsroom employees were told by phone that they no longer had jobs.

In the flush times of a decade ago, the AJC was home to about 500 full-time journalists; when the buyout dust settles, that number will have been pared back to slightly more than 200, most of whom will have heavier workloads and fewer resources than ever before.

Whatever your opinion of the AJC’s virtues, the newspaper going forward can’t escape being a diminished version of its former self. The question is: What kind of news coverage can Atlanta still expect from its daily newspaper?

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1. AJC plans to cut staff by 30 percent (As we later reported, nearly 90 editorial staffers will be bought out or laid off. That sucks.)

2. Atlanta to New Orleans rail line in danger … because of Alabama? (At least this story has a happy ending.)

3. Atlanta City Council OKs Decatur Belt deal— with a catch (Marietta Street residents protect their neighborhood from destruction, and the newest Beltline plan is a win-win)

4. Examining the Sweet 16: Nova v. Duke is can’t miss basketball (Needless to say, we rooted for the Tar Heels.)

5. Georgia slips in ’safest state’ rankings to no. 39 (The Peach State dropped seven spots, to be exact — the largest plummet in the country. Oops.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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After weeks of rumors, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this morning announced that it plans to cut 30 percent of its full-time newsroom staff. It will be the third and largest round of job cuts  since 2007 to hit metro Atlanta’s largest daily newspaper. Effective April 26, the AJC will also stop distribution to seven outlying counties, reducing its total distribution area to 20 counties in the metro region.

From a staff report:

The AJC’s news staff will drop to about 230 full-time positions, down from about 323 currently. Staff members with five or more years with the company will be offered voluntary buyouts, with layoffs to follow if fewer than about 90 apply, the company said.

Most of the news staff cuts “will be in production and management, allowing us to keep as many news reporters as possible,” AJC and ajc.com editor Julia Wallace said.

The cuts are expected to be completed in May.

The company laid off 48 part-time news staffers Tuesday and announced the full-time cuts Wednesday morning.

In 2006, full-time newsroom staff numbered about 500.

(UPDATE): Rumored counties dropped from distribution: Barrow, Bibb, Clarke, Houston, Monroe, Oconee, Putnam.

More to come.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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1. Atlanta job fair at Georgia World Congress Center (If this post had attracted thousands of visits a few years back, I’d have laughed to myself and said, “What next? Creative Loafing declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy?” Hahahahaha.)

2. Soapbox: Jekyll Island Authority ‘at it again’ (At 239 comments and counting, the Jekyll post is encroaching on Black Mafia Family territory. A JIA v. BMF beef? Scary.)

3. AJC layoffs: this week or next (I’m not going to make a snide remark about the abovementioned job fair. This economy is no place for snide remarks.)

4. Georgia mayor’s Facebook page confuses nation (How easy it is to offend with a can of Schlitz and a pack of Camels!)

5. Sneak peek: Creative Loafing’s website makeover (The euphoria of making our own top-five list is only slightly diminished by the fact that most commenters trashed our makeover. Meanies.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Decatur Metro has a great conversation about my colleague Scott Henry’s news that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newsroom is bracing for yet another round of job cuts.

Commenters weigh in on what’s to blame for the quickening, whether it’s the Internet, liberal bias, or other factors. (For what it’s worth, Whet Moser, an excellent writer at CL’s sister paper The Chicago Reader, has an excellent piece that nails the various factors at play in journalism.)

One commenter who claims to be an AJC journalist added some firsthand experience to the discussion. This part stood out:

You print lovers need to brace yourself. I think there’s a real possibility that the print version of the AJC may be gone by the end of next year. Yes, I’m serious.

Not good.

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1. AJC is losing $1 million per week (The big question: Can Anne Cox Chambers’ billions save Atlanta’s daily?)

2. Clearing up confusion over Standard murder (Dissecting a robbery gone horribly awry.)

3. Shooting outside East Atlanta’s Graveyard Tavern is eerily familiar (Notice the absence of high-profile violent crime following the shooting death of a would-be robber at the hands of his victim.)

4. Shirley snaps back at cop union head (Crime seems to have everyone — herroner included — on edge.)

5. First Person: Jennifer Graves, wife, mother, swinger (Make love — not armed robberies.)

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Jason Pye at Peach Pundit posts an email from Susan Meyers that says Jim Wooten, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s lone conservative voice and a 30-year veteran at the paper, will retire this summer.

In news that may shock some, be regarded as inevitable to others, Jim Wooten, the voice of principled conservative thought at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, announced to the staff Friday he will retire this summer after three decades at the newspaper.

Wooten, an award-winning journalist, can be thanked for his years of columns and editorials calling on elected officials to spend taxpayer funds as if it were being depleted from their own wallets.

…

As the Associate Editorial Page Editor, it is believed Wooten will continue to post a weekly Thinking Right column as he enjoys life as a Middle Georgia farmer. To read Wooten’s bio please click here.

Who’s gonna take Wooten’s place? DaleC?

UPDATE: Here’s where to go for details if you’re interested in becoming the paper’s new conservative columnist.

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Yellow nails? She must be a smoker!

Amount Georgia lawmakers want to raise the price of cigarettes to offset a $2.4 billion deficit: $1

Georgia’s current tax on cigarettes: 39 cents

Nation’s average cigarette tax: $1.19

Estimated revenue the proposed cigarette tax would generate for the state: $350 million

Estimated tax revenue that would be raised if Sunday alcohol sales were allowed: $4.8 million

Number of signatures on an online petition calling for alcohol to be sold in stores on the Sabbath: 52,070

Dollar amount of a proposed “pole tax” that state lawmakers want strip club patrons to pay at the door: $5

Price of admission after 10 p.m. on a regular night at the Cheetah: $10

Minimum estimated revenue that could be generated if casinos were built in Atlanta and along the Georgia coast: $600 million

Sources: AJC, Associated Press, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, PetitionOnline.com, TheCheetah.com, 11Alive.com

(Photo courtesy of Photos.com)

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Clayton County Chairman Eldrin Bell

Clayton County commissioners approved a developer’s request to relocate 311 graves from a historic African-American cemetery next to Jackson-Hartsfield International Airport. On Dec. 16, opponents held a press conference to criticize the decision.

“I’ve seen my daddy dig many graves back there. He hand-dug those graves, so I know where they are.”

— Betty Bowden, who says she has ancestors in the cemetery, in the Dec. 18 Clayton Daily News.

“Some of these developers will put cement over their mama.”

— John Evans of Operation LEAD, an anti-discrimination group, in the Dec. 16 AJC.

“The person who wants to move these graves has met the standards of the state, as well as the board…I have invited the families to monitor [the transfer of the grave sites] as it takes place.”

— Clayton Chairman Eldrin Bell in the Dec. 18 Clayton Daily News.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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He goes out quoting Mark Twain:

Mark Twain famously said it was a terrible death to be talked to death. He also had this to say about journalists who feel compelled to write valedictories when they end their careers: “If there is anything more uncalled for … it is one of those tearful, blubbery, long-winded “valedictories” —- where a man who has been annoying the public for ten years can not take leave of them without sitting down to cry out a column and a half.”

My last day at the newspaper was Friday. It has been a pleasure over a 37-year career to have had a chance to annoy you, first as public editor and more recently as an editorial columnist, for the last eight years. Thanks to the newspaper for the platform and to you for reading.

King has been a familiar voice on education and issues affecting Cobb County, where he lives. Earlier this year, he penned a poignant column about his wife Anne’s sudden death. (Full disclosure: I went to high school with King’s children.)

If you want to get in touch with him, his personal e-mail is listed at the bottom of his final column.

(Hat tip to Doug at Live Apartment Fire)

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Effective Jan. 11, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says it will shrink its circulation area to 27 counties and cut 156 jobs. The affected counties are mostly located along the Alabama and North Carolina borders (full list is available through the link). Jobs slated to be cut appear to be in the circulation department. (If I’m mistaken, please correct me in the comments or via e-mail. Anonymity guaranteed.)

From the report:

The move will reduce daily and Sunday circulation about 5 percent. But it will not significantly affect overall readership — a measure of readers rather than the number of copies — because that is based on a 28-county area, the AJC said.

The company said 215 employees have been offered involuntary severance packages as part of a restructuring of the circulation department, but that they may apply for 59 jobs created by the changes. The net reduction is 156 full- and part-time positions.

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From Romenesko:

Cox Newspapers Washington bureau chief Andy Alexander will become the Washington Post’s ombudsman for a two-year term beginning Feb. 2. “He brings with him more than 30 years of experience in the news industry and will be an excellent advocate for our readers,” writes Post publisher Katharine Weymouth. Cox Newspaper announced this week that Alexander’s bureau will shut down in April.

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Cox Newspapers, a subsidiary of Cox Communications and owner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says it will shut down its national and international news bureau in Washington, D.C. on April 1, 2009.

A company memo posted on Romenesko says the AJC and Dayton Daily News will “manage their own Washington and international newsgathering independently following the national bureau’s closing through dedicated correspondents in D.C.” Eligible employees of the D.C. bureau will be offered “generous” severance packages and continued employment until March 31. Bureau chief Andy Alexander will retire at the end of the year.

“The Washington news bureau and its chief, Andy Alexander, have an impressive and storied history in Washington and in our company,” Sandy Schwartz, Cox Newspapers president, said in the memo. “For more than 30 years, the reporters of this bureau have broken an untold number of stories that have had an impact on the lives of our readers in cities and towns all across the U.S. The Cox Washington bureau has won or shared virtually every major American journalism award, including the Pulitzer Prize.”

After the jump, read the entire memo. It includes details about Alexander’s career — it’s been an impressive one — and information about the international bureau.

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The AJC may have more daily poll questions about what socks you like to wear or what disgusting caloric mess you want to eat — really, guys? — but CL is blessed with better commenters. Maybe not all the time, but even when they’re dicks, they’re kind of clever!

But check out Jim Galloway’s Political Insider post this morning about 40 percent of early voters being African American. The AJC kooky komment klan are livid — LIVID I TELL YOU — about the news, and in their usual way, accuse the paper of being a bunch of Communist hacks wanting us to wait in bread lines and also make broad claims against African Americans. Metro Atlanta rocks in that progressive way.

Let us bask in the wisdom of three dudes using different handles, copying and pasting the same trite Free Republic nonsense every single day.

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Former AJC Managing Editor John Walter died Thursday, just over six years after leaving Atlanta for Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

The Vineyard Gazette, where Walter served as editor and publisher in 2003 and 2004, had a brief notice of his death Friday

John Walter of Edgartown [Mass.] died unexpectedly yesterday following complications from surgery at Mercy Hospital in Springfield. He was 61 and was co-publisher of Vineyard Stories with his wife Jan Pogue. A complete obituary will appear in a future edition of the Gazette; arrangements were incomplete at press time.

Walter had served as managing editor of the AJC for 12 years and had been expected to succeed top Editor Ron Martin when Martin retired. In 2001, however, Martin hired Julia Wallace as managing editor and, by naming Walter “executive editor,” moved him out of the line of succession.

When Wallace replaced Martin as editor, Walter resigned and moved to Martha’s Vineyard, a scenic vacation island where he became editor and publisher of the twice-weekly Gazette. After leaving the Gazette, Walter and Pogue founded Vineyard Stories, a vanity book publishing company.

Surprisingly, there’s been no notice of Walter’s death in the AJC.

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Former AJC business columnist Maria Saporta will be plying her trade for the Atlanta Business Chronicle, journalism blogger Chris Roush reports.

This is a major coup for the business weekly, which has been going toe-to-toe with the declining business reporting staff of the daily. Saporta, who wrote her column in the AJC for 17 years, probably owns the highest profile byline of any of the 73 journalists who left staff positions there as part of last month’s buyouts.

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