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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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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1) Nancy Floyd leads DIY Tuesday’s Build a Popsicle Stick House at Welch Gallery.

2) Dead Man plays the Earl.

3) Georgia WAND hosts Jay Bookman and the Rev. Joseph Lowery for the Real State of the Union.

4) Splatter Cinema brings Zombie to the Plaza Theatre.

5) A Cappella Books sponsors a Ballroom Book Bash for Futureproof author N. Frank Daniels.

(Image by Nancy Floyd)

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Jesus, a guy goes to City Hall for two hours and a shitstorm erupts. Well, here’s our take on what happened.

So there’s this internal memo of very questionable origin floating around that’s purported to be from a top political consulting firm. And it’s addressed to a PAC that’s allegedly pushing for U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss. On Monday morning, the scandalous document puttered out of our fax machine with no name attached. (You can read all about the memo — hell, even read the memo itself — here.)

In it, tales of doom are told. The most frightening of which is that post-debate poll numbers showed Libertarian Party nominee Allen Buckley eating into Chambliss’ support. Lest something is done to ruin Buckley’s standing with undecided voters, the document says, the incumbent Republican could surely face a runoff or even lose his seat to Democratic nominee Jim Martin.

Dear God, please — say it ain’t so.

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The Macon Telegraph’s Travis Fain, blogging at Lucid Idiocy and following up on what was first reported here at Georgia Premium, follows up and says that U.S. Senate candidate Jim Martin’s campaign may have pulled the trigger a little too soon on another endorsement. First there was the Josh Lanier gaffe, now it involves state Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin. Fain reports the Martin campaign is declining comment until it speaks with Irvin.

Fain raises two good points:

But, 1.) How do you run a race against Vernon Jones and end up looking shady?

And, 2.) Is this all a case of people truly remaining neutral, or of people just technically remaining neutral because Jones might win?

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Harsh, but the truth hurts. After just a week on the job, DOT Commissioner Gena Abraham has come to Gov. Sonny Perdue with a confused look on her face and wondered just what the hell kind of a mess she inherited. Abraham, a successful woman with a reputation for efficiency, rose up through the ranks in public service and the construction industry and has been spotlighted as a person who can possibly shake the agency’s inertia.

Here are just some of the problems: When asked how many projects DOT currently has on its books, Abraham was told 1,100. After a couple of updates from staff, she says it appears the total now hovers around 9,211. The 1,553 lawsuits the agency faces are not being managed properly. The accounting operations at DOT, she discovered, don’t even communicate. And while agency honchos told InsiderAdvantage and That Other Paper they honestly don’t believe there to be any chicanery going on, they think a wider gap needs to exist between planners and private industry chums. These are problems with the process, and not the people, they said. And there’s gonna have to be some ch-ch-changes.

Lee Biola, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit, says he hopes the agency can learn some lessons from Abraham’s report. “Before we even knew of problems with the projects, we knew [DOT's] larger aims were out of touch with much of Georgia,” he says. “We know they’ve been resistant to the idea of commuter rail. Very often they do their projects with very little sensitivity to community. Like on 14th Street, they’ve already taken out several restaurants, are impacting pedestrian access and making it a high-speed area for cars. It’s time for them not to be just efficient, but more sensitive.”

Abraham’s findings may be echoed during the upcoming General Assembly when legislators may discuss if taxpayers, especially after all this was revealed, will be able to trust DOT with their tax dollars. Groups such as CFPT — which supports a regional sales tax for transportation projects — say that the best planning decisions are made at the local level and should be paid for by those directly affected by them. If a region has the cash to pursue a transportation project, why should DOT even be involved?

That Other Paper describes DOT as being in “disarray,” but I’ll label it crony-influenced malaise perpetuated by hand-shakery and look-the-other-way-ism. It’s a rare disease that affects certain sedentary members of political bodies. Rarely found in community organizations or jobs where people don’t have the luxury of catching Fat Cat fever, it is usually only treated by moving on to private industry or consulting work. Usually the disease is terminal at that point.

Jay Bookman eloquently outlines the crony culture that has been a mainstay at the state’s transportation agency for decades, as well as the political squabbling that both went on before Abraham’s appointment and appears to be continuing as motorists sit in gridlock.

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Reverend Joe Beasley twice calls Senator David Shafer a “race man” and accuses him of trying to get the City of Atlanta abolished when Maynard Jackson was elected Mayor (in the early 1970s when Shafer would have been in elemetary [sic] school). You can hear it here.

— Erick at Peach Pundit, on WABE-FM (90.1) series “Saving Grady” about Grady Hospital.

Note, Beasley doesn’t explicitly accuse Shafer of trying to abolish Atlanta. Instead, he seems to conflate Shafer with state legislators of the early 1970s.

Whether he’s actually accusing Shafer of being the Doogie Howser of legislative racism is beside the point. Beasley is clearly trying to short-circuit a serious discussion about Shafer’s legislation by calling him a racist.

Incidentally, Beasley also calls Maynard Jackson “the first mayor of the city of Atlanta.”

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Hey, it’s raining outside

— Mel at Blog For Democracy helpfully notes that it’s raining outside — as opposed to inside. Thanks, Sonny.

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I suppose some Democrats are going to say, “Clinton managed to balance the budget and create a surplus.” Clinton deserves some credit, but the Republican controlled Congress deserves just as much recognition for their part, like I said above…Congress holds the purse.

— Jason Pye accuses AJC columnist Jay Bookman of intellectual dishonesty for saying Democrats are more fiscally conservative than Republicans.

In the same post, Pye praises President Reagan for cutting federal spending, never mentioning that Democrats controlled the House of Representatives during Reagan’s two terms.

Either they “hold the purse” or they don’t.

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