High drama in Lithonia: Where was the AJC?
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008The lead story on this morning’s AJC website is a report on the high drama last night between the city council and the mayor in Lithonia. Mayor Joyce McKibben fired the police chief, only to have the council reinstate him minutes later.
McKibben’s staff then locked themselves into City Hall. Once the building was unlocked, the city council booted the mayor out and had a locksmith come out and change the locks to the building.
Wow. Clayton County comes to Lithonia.
The AJC story is attributed to “television news reports,” which means at least three local television news stations knew the confrontation was going to take place and sent reporters to cover it.
That leaves two scenarios for the AJC: Either they knew about the meeting and decided not to send a reporter, or else had no idea what was going on and saw it on the 11 o’clock news like the rest of us.
Either scenario is an embarrassment to the AJC, as it is the city’s major daily publishing a story based solely on television news reports. Not only that, the AJC story has two by-lines. What’s the deal with that? Did one reporter watch the news while the other held the remote and flipped channels?
The newspaper industry is undergoing a sea of change. There are cutbacks going on at almost every paper in the country because of the intrusion of the Internet. Every paper in the country, including weeklies like Creative Loafing, is being asked to do more with less.
Still, that is no excuse for the city’s major daily to be so unaware of what’s going on in its own community. Three of the four local news stations — WSB-TV and WXIA and Fox — sent reporters even though they have a vastly smaller news staff than the AJC.
For Fox 5’s report, click here.
