Fresh Loaf

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.

(more…)

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Reporters get suspicious when we’re denied access to meetings where extremely powerful and wealthy people get together with elected officials to discuss issues of great public importance.

That’s what will happen this Monday morning when the Atlanta Committee for Progress (PDF) and Mayor Shirley Franklin go behind closed doors to talk about … well, who knows what. The APC is composed of the city’s pre-eminent CEOs – we’re talking the top dogs here, no VPs or community-relations folks allowed.

The group’s chairman is Neville Isdell of Coke – see what we mean? – and other members include Richard Anderson of Delta, Mike Garrett of Georgia Power, developer Herman Russell, Tom Bell of Cousins, James Kennedy of Cox, Phil Kent of Turner, and the list goes on and on.

The APC was created in 2003 as the lynchpin of Franklin’s efforts to win the business community’s support for City Hall initiatives after eight disastrous years in which Bill Campbell had bitten the hands of and otherwise alienated the city’s corporate honchos.

We’re not criticizing the formation of such a group – it’s a great achievement from both a civic and a political viewpoint. But we would like to know what these ridiculously influential people talk about with our mayor.

Are they advising her on what the Beltline should look like? Are they cutting secret land deals? Are they asking her to fix their kids’ parking tickets? There’s no way to know.

John Ahmann, a consultant to the mayor who acts as executive director of the group, says Monday’s agenda has Franklin briefing the Star Chamber about the Beltline, the city budget, this fall’s statewide TAD referendum and the city’s upcoming legislative wish list.

Sounds harmless enough. But remember: These are the guys who talked the mayor into launching Brand Atlanta.

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SPY VS. PIE: The AP reports that Julia Child left a career as a WWII-era spy to become a chef; Child is one of several well-known Americans whose previously secret spy career was revealed this morning, as the personnel files of the pre-CIA Office of Strategic Services were declassified.

SHOOTING: The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party is dead after a recently fired Target employee mysteriously drove more than 30 miles to Little Rock and shot him.

LANIER: Georgia officials asked SCOTUS this morning to overturn a February appeals-court ruling requiring congressional approval for the state to take more water from Lake Lanier to quench Atlanta’s growing thirst.

STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE: The NYT reports on the resurgent popularity of streetcars in at least 40 U.S. downtowns such as Cincinnati, New Orleans, Houston and Charlotte. Not mentioned: Atlanta’s distant visions for the Beltline and Peachtree Street streetcar.

SACS: The accrediting agency is in Clayton County today, part of its review to determine whether the school system will be the first since 1969 to have its accreditation revoked.

SCRATCH PAPER: Cox Newspapers is selling all but three of its newspapers.

RESCUE 911: The recent death of a Johns Creek woman highlights problems in the Fulton County emergency services, as the 911 operator who sent emergency crews 30 miles in the wrong direction had a long history of such routing mistakes. She also repeatedly was disciplined for sleeping on the job, chronic tardiness and fighting with co-workers, and records show her behavior wasn’t uncommon in the department.

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Furman Bisher, the dean of America’s newspaper sports columnists, appears on a stunning list of talent set to leave the AJC staff voluntarily as part of the daily’s downsizing.

Unlike others on the list, Bisher actually may continue to produce work for the paper. There was talk inside the newsroom about him staying on as a contracted columnist rather than an employee.

But colleagues were able to confirm the names of more than two dozen other journalists who’ll be leaving the paper over the next few months — most at the end of August. A handful are relatively young talents; most are newsroom veterans who represent whole blocks of the AJC’s institutional knowledge.

Among them: film reviewer Bob Longino, investigations editor Jim Walls, and a slew of familiar bylines responsible for some of the paper’s best work over the last two or three decades. Opinion column editor David Beasley also appears on lists circulating among newsroom staffers, but colleagues I contacted weren’t sure whether he did take the paper’s buyout offer. (UPDATE: Beasley confirmed this morning that he’s taking the buyout.) (more…)

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On Dec. 18, George Bush’s viceroy at the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin Martin, will try to ram through changes that will allow Big Media to get much, much bigger. In Atlanta, that could lead to Cox — which already owns the AJC and WSB — snapping up more TV stations. It would also maximize the value of the Cox holdings — perhaps convincing the Cox family to grab the money and run by selling to an even larger conglomerate. Who knows? Rupert Murdoch could become the sleazemaster of Atlanta media.

You can do something, not that the Cox media are likely to tell you that. Heck, it’s only been in recent weeks (after CL chided the Coxopoly on the point) that the AJC has begun admitting that it has lobbyists involved in the FCC fracas.

Fight for independent, local media. For a place to start, go to the Stop Big Media website.

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Well, you can quit waiting. Forbes has just published its annual list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, and you aren’t on it. However, five other Atlantans did make the cut; none is a big surprise and all are predictably white.

First up, as always, is willowish octogenarian Anne Cox Chambers, whose inherited media empire includes the AJC, WSB radio and TV and scores of other newspapers and broadcasters, a cable TV company and auto sales. While her wealth remains steady — $12.6 billion — her rank on the list has slipped from a high of No. 12 a few years back to No. 24 this year, one spot above New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Following the death of the other Cox sister, Barbara Cox Anthony, in May, we’d wondered what would become of her money. The introduction of her son and Cox Co. Chairman and CEO James Kennedy, 59, to the Forbes list at No. 50 has effectively answered that question. He and his sister, Australian cattle rancher Blair Parry-Okeden, each now boast $6.3 billion.

Then come the Home Depot guys, Bernie Marcus, No. 239 with $2 billion, and Arthur Blank, No. 317 with $1.5 billion. And rounding out the top five at No. 380 with a paltry $1.3 billion is evangelical Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy.

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The more people know about Big Media becoming Bigger, Bigger and Humongous Media, the more they dislike the idea, the Pew Research Center Found in 2003. Before information was available on media-consolidation schemes pending before the Federal Communications Commission, 34 percent of respondents thought they were bad ideas. After the information was available, 50 percent were opposed. Only 10 percent supported the moves.

So the solution for some media giants is to keep the public in the dark. Atlanta’s Coxopoly does a darn good job of that. Four years ago, there was nary an article on moves by media giants to muscle approval from the FCC to allow daily newspapers to own, without much restriction, broadcast properties in the same city. Here in Atlanta, where Cox already owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WSB-TV plus a number of radio stations, the goal was for the company to snap up another television outlet, maybe two.

Only after it was too late for citizens to voice their feelings to the FCC did the AJC run a story — and that never explored Cox’s role in lobbying for the changes. AJC Managing Editor Hank Klibanoff assured me at the time: “There’s no conspiracy.”

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