Fresh Loaf

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 buyout list official — 74 to leave (In addition to the dozens of veteran reporters who jumped ship, news of Pulitzer-winner Cynthia Tucker’s move to D.C. and food writer John Kessler’s brief departure from food-writing made it a very productive week for us pageview-hoarding wretches at Fresh Loaf.)

2. Atlanta Tea Party with Sean Hannity to feature ’shit sandwiches’ (It’s estimated that 10,000 people attended. Imagine the response had Hannity been offering roast beef!)

3. Bottoms up at Frolicon (That’s a lot of booty.)

4. Anti-tax protestors urged to, um, ride MARTA (Irony sandwich, anyone?)

5. CNN’s Anderson Cooper on why Republicans can’t find their voice (A  recap of last week wouldn’t have been complete without at least one teabagging reference. Phew.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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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.”

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On Sunday, the AJC’s brand-new publisher, Doug Franklin, shed a little more light on upcoming changes to the newspaper’s print edition through an article addressed directly to readers. Most of the changes he mentioned were already anticipated, but he provided a few new details.

Here’s what Franklin says to expect:

• In mid-March, the Tuesday-Saturday Business section will merge with an expanded A section. The Sunday section will remain a stand-alone.

• The three Sunday feature sections (Living & Style, Arts & Leisure and Travel) will be combined into one.

• The current TVWeek supplement will be replaced with our own stand-alone, full-color TV section.

OK, I didn’t see the TV supplement coming, although I must admit I can’t be bothered to care. That aside, the other tweaks are fairly conservative first steps toward running a tighter ship. Even so, I’m assuming that a few jobs will be shaved simply by combining sections. With all due respect to the folks who now put together the AJC’s Sunday Living section, that thing’s been in dire need of an update longer than Mickey Rourke’s needed a comeback.

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The AJC’s Cynthia Tucker clearly struck a nerve on Wednesday when she used her column to demonstrate how Fox News Senior Falafel Correspondent Bill O’Reilly is a ginormous phony.

After calling her a “nut” a couple days ago, O’Reilly sent a camera-wielding goon squad to Atlanta this morning to ambush the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist while she was carrying her groceries.

According to Tucker’s colleague, AJC columnist Jay Bookman, the goon squad yelled loaded questions at Tucker that blatantly misrepresented the points she made in her recent column, which noted O’Reilly’s selective outrage on the subject of teen pregnancy.

O’Reilly publicly condemned Lynne Spears after her 16-year-old daughter Jamie Lynn became pregnant. Yet, O’Reilly has been supportive of Republican V.P. candidate Gov. Sarah Palin, whose 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant.

One can only guess at O’Reilly’s motives for sending a crew to ambush Tucker at her home. It sounds to me like the self-pitying talk show host was hoping to gather unflattering footage of Tucker to air on his show.

In other words, O’Reilly lost the factual argument, so he’s lashing out like a whiny little bitch.

If ever a grown man needed to be put in time-out, it’s Bill O’Reilly.

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In a great column yesterday, Pulitzer-having AJC columnist Cynthia Tucker noticed that phony Republican moralists only attack parents of unwed pregnant teens when the parents of said teen are not Republican vice-presidential candidates.

Among those she singled out was Fox News Senior Falafel Correspondent Bill O’Reilly.

Quoth Tucker:

When Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy was revealed, for example, Bill O’Reilly went after her parents.

“On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet.

“Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves,” O’Reilly declared.

Bill O’Reilly’s response to having been called out?

He called Tucker a “nut” and insisted the two situations have “nothing to do” with one another.

You know you’re having a good week when this guy calls you a nut:

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Word among Atlanta Journal-Constitution staffers is that the paper’s Sunday @issue section will be eliminated later this summer or early in the fall.

In an e-mail response to my questions, AJC Editor Julia Wallace insisted that no decisions have been made about a long-planned remake of the Sunday paper and suggested that I “ignore the rumors.”

“We’re in the middle of a thorough review of our Sunday newspaper,” Wallace said, adding that the AJC’s been seeking reader feedback on possible changes.

Several newsroom rank-and-file members are under the impression that the decision has been made, however. They say @issue — the Sunday op-ed-and-essay section — will shrink and be folded into another part of the paper as part of the much-vaunted “AJC 2.0″ project.

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Although it’s fun to watch Mayor Shirley Franklin and AJC Editorial Page Editor Cynthia Tucker lob rhetorical grenades at each other, one thing is clear: Tucker was entirely right in describing Atlanta’s “sorry financial shape” as Franklin enters the final months of her regime. If anything, the AJC editor was too polite.

One thing is also clear. Criticize the mayor, even mildly, and you’ll get a blast of vitriol from her office. One public official, for example, had the temerity to tell me that she doubted the mayor’s commitment to the transportation component of the Beltline. After all, other cities — Charlotte (which is quickly stealing Atlanta’s title of “Business Capital of the South”) and Denver come to mind — have actually greatly expanded transit systems while we have, um, drawn pretty maps. That official told me that the “mayor came after me like a low-flying missile” for daring to express an opinion, a very well-founded opinion.

Last year, I became curious about the mayor’s travel records. She is almost always on a trip, it seems. There were two things that I learned from my curiosity: First, in City Hall, ethics are relative (you could also call this “Franklin Exceptionalism”), and the city’s financial management was awful.

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Mayor Shirley Franklin lately has publicly boasted of having a thick skin in the face of criticism over the city’s current budget crisis. But her actions seem to speak otherwise. In a Wednesday column, AJC editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker took the Mayor to task over the budget shortfall, calling it a “blot” on her legacy.

 ”After six years in office, she presides over a budgeting process nearly as dysfunctional as that left behind by her criminal predecessor, Bill Campbell.”

As the first time (we can remember) that Tucker has badmouthed Franklin in print, the column raised eyebrows across the city and seemed to represent a turning of the tide of public opinion.

Well, Franklin wasted little time in responding. In an open letter to Tucker posted on the city website, she swipes back with no small amount of sarcasm.

“You quickly conclude my record is blotted. Did you think I was running for prom queen, a one night stand?”

Then she accuses Tucker of dissing Franklin’s political courage:

“You seem to prefer the ‘get elected, duck and hide model.’ Too bad for you and your readers that you don’t comprehend  the full breadth of reform that this city, state and country desperately needs.”

Folks, this whole thing is getting uglier by the moment.

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Cynthia Tucker has the reputation for taking unpopular stances. She was among the first to call out former Mayor Bill Campbell. She took on Cynthia McKinney and the King family. Which is part of the reason she has received a Pulitzer Prize for her commentary (and a CL “Best of Atlanta” award).

In today’s AJC, Tucker delivers a strongly worded blast at the “thug” culture inspired by rap music, which she says is destroying black Americans:

But the violence isn’t just playacting; it’s not just teenagers trying on a rebellious facade. Young adults — many of them men, most of them black — get arrested. They go to prison. They die on the streets.

There is now a cottage industry dedicated to defending rap music, a group of enablers who glorify hard-core rap as a legitimate art form reflecting the bitter real-life experiences of ghetto inhabitants. But I have no patience for the academic exegeses. This so-called music and the lifestyle it glorifies is a malignancy destroying black America. What does it take for mothers and fathers, ministers and teachers, music executives and TV moguls to turn it off?

It’s a brave stance for Tucker — to take on rap music in the rap capital of the world — but it’s also a finger in the dike. The hard truth is that it’s all about the Benjamins. When the public stops buying it, people will stop selling it.

In the meantime, many of the stars of rap self-fulfill their own prophecies through arrests, violence and death: T.I., the Black Mafia Family, Foxy Brown, Tupac, the Notorious B.I.G., and the list goes on and on.

The question I don’t know the answer to is this: Is rap music that glorifies “thug” culture the symptom or the disease? Is it a reflection of today’s society, or does it define our society? Or is it a little of both?

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Feisty former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has picked yet another fight — this time with Pulitzer-winning AJC editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker. McKinney has sued Tucker, the newspaper and its owners, Cox Enterprises, for libel, alleging that she suffered “permanent impairment to her ability to continue her livelihood” as a result of two of Tucker’s opinion pieces and another article.

“[W]hat changes to the ‘stinking system’ has McKinney wrought? She doesn’t have the prestige or power to pass a resolution in support of sweetened ice tea.”

— From Tucker’s July 30, 2006, editorial

“Tucker knew that the Power Rankings by Congress.org rated Cynthia McKinney 277 of 435 Congresspersons in legislative effectiveness.”

— From McKinney’s July 2007 lawsuit, in an attempt to prove Tucker downplayed McKinney’s power and prestige

“This is a set-up for the catfight of the century.”

— Posted by “Wings-n-Wind” on the conservative website www.freepublic.com

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Former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney has filed a libel suit against the AJC.

Atlanta Progressive News reports the suit lists five “false and defamatory” statements about McKinney penned by Pulitzer Prize-winning AJC op-ed columnist Cynthia Tucker in a July 2006 column.

Fifth on the list:

McKinney takes issue with a statement by Tucker that McKinney “doesn’t have the power or prestige to pass a resolution in support of sweetened iced tea.”

I hope this gets to trial, if only to hear McKinney’s attorney attempt to prove she was indeed powerful and prestigious enough to legislate on behalf of sweet tea.

It’s too bad legendary attorney Lionel Hutz is no longer with us. It’s the case he was born to argue.

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AJC Editorial Page Editor Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary today.

In a press release, the Pulitzer Prize Board praised Tucker’s “courageous, clear-headed columns that evince a strong sense of morality and persuasive knowledge of the community.”

In 2006, Creative Loafing named Tucker Best Columnist in our Best of Atlanta issue. We wrote that Tucker “produces timely and often courageous columns that dare to expose the clay feet of such local idols as Cynthia McKinney and the King family.”

In addition to a handsome trophy and a $10,000 cash prize, Tucker can now compete each morning with editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich and Managing Editor Hank Klibanoff for the AJC’s prestigious “Reserved For Pulitzer Prize-Winners Only” parking space.

The award is well-deserved and we wish her congratulations.

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