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Andisheh just pointed out to me that Sarah Palin told Katie Couric the other day that she reads Creative Loafing. I’m excited that a potential vice president “established her worldview” by reading our paper, as well as by reading dailies like the New York Times and Pravda.
Here’s the official list of AJC editorial staff members who’ve taken the staff buyout. Sources say Editor Julia Wallace sent the list to the newsroom today.
To all,
Here is a list of the folks who have taken the VSP and wanted their names shared. There are years of great contributions here — stories, postings, headlines, photos, wonderful editing. All will be missed.
Julia
Stan Awtrey, Lisa Axelberg, Tony Barnhart, Byrone Battles, David Beasley, Scott Bernarde, Peter Bilodeau, Kevin Braun, Arthur Brice, Kathy Brister, Lisa Brown, Curtis Bunn, Walter Cumming, Dale Dodson, Rob Douthit, Eileen Drennen, Henry Farber, Nancy Foreman, Sheila Garland, Susan Gast,
Julie Hairston, Renee Hannans, Glenn Hannigan, Ann Hardie, Bill Hendrick, Sarah Hicks, Alma Hill, Michelle Hiskey, Courtney Hoover, Chris Hunt, Bill Husted, Naftal Jahannes, Kris Jensen, Andrea Jones, Elizabeth Lee, Bob Longino, Rebecca McCarthy, Helen McCoy, Amanda Miller, Jill Miller, Adrianne Murchison, Frank Niemeir,
Tom Opdyke, Gerry Overton, Wendy Parker, David Pendered, Buddy Pinkston, Susan Puckett, Stephanie Reid, Yolanda Rodriguez, Karen Rosen, Jacki Rudd, Bill Sanders, Maria Saporta, Andy Sharp, Minla Shields, Diane Stepp, Cameron Tankersley, Paige Taylor, Yemi Toure, Jim Walls, Scott Walton, Beth Warren, Susan Wells, Tom Whitfield, Clint Williams, Matt Winkeljohn, Connie Woods, Rick Zabell
Those are a lot of longtime staff members and familiar bylines. Four of the 73 people who’ve taken buyouts aren’t on Wallace’s list because they didn’t want their names shared.
The one name missing that was mentioned in my earlier post is veteran sports columnist Furman Bisher, who was on lists circulated Friday by staff members. Although newsroom insiders said Bisher may be switching from a staff position to a contractual arrangement, AJC spokeswoman said Mary Dugenske said this in an e-mail: “Furman was not on our list of VSP applicants. He remains a valuable voice for the AJC.” Carefully crafted statement to avoid saying he did take the buyout, or does it just mean he didn’t take it? Dunno. Will update if Mary tells me.
The earlier post provides more details on what the staff members mentioned do at the AJC.
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…)
This may sound odd for an organization that prides itself on the free flow of ideas, but staffers who are leaving Atlanta Journal-Constitution are being required to sign an agreement that they won’t “disparage” the paper or its management once they leave, according to several AJC employees.
“I was pretty surprised to see that in there,” said one reporter who’s viewed the agreement.
The AJC didn’t care to discuss the stipulation. “As standard practice, we don’t disclose any specifics regarding legal agreements we have with employees,” says spokeswoman Jennifer Morrow.
But one employee said the severance agreement being presented to employees this month bars those who sign it from making “any disparaging or untrue statements about the company,” its subsidiaries or any other employee. The source indicated that the quote was lifted from the actual agreement (I’d love to get my hands on a copy; please e-mail me if you’d like to share one).
An employee who left during last year’s buyout confirmed that similar phrasing was in the severance agreement he signed last year. That employee said the agreement caused some former writers and editors to refrain from discussing newsroom management in media coverage last year, specifically an Atlanta Magazine profile of Editor Julia Wallace by former CL writer Steve Fennessy.
As published in the Columbia Journalism Review.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism released a report today that may sound familiar to folks who’ve been watching the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s recent travails.
“Meet the American daily newspaper of 2008,” it begins. Then:
It has fewer pages than three years ago, the paper stock is thinner, and the stories are shorter. There is less foreign and national news, less space devoted to science, the arts, features and a range of specialized subjects. Business coverage is either packaged in an increasingly thin stand-alone section or collapsed into another part of the paper. The crossword puzzle has shrunk, the TV listings and stock tables may have disappeared, but coverage of some local issues has strengthened and investigative reporting remains highly valued. (more…)
AJC Publisher John Mellott attempted to calm the waters Thursday in an e-mail to staff members after a sister Cox family-owned paper announced big staff reductions earlier in the week. But Mellott also warned that more cuts are likely to hit the Journal-Constitution.
“The economic factors affecting our business have worsened,” Mellott wrote to the AJC staff. “The recession, the housing market downturn, as well as soaring newsprint and fuel costs have increased the urgency to reduce expenses. We will do so aggressively and in ways that make most sense for our market, our readers and our advertisers.”
Mellott’s e-mail followed an announcement that the Palm Beach Post, which along with the Atlanta paper is owned by Cox Newspapers, would reduce its workforce of 1,350 people by 300 — including a whopping 130 from the newsroom. The cuts are the latest in a slew of workforce reductions at dailies across the country.
“All Cox newspapers are carefully assessing their own markets and business models and will be taking the actions necessary to remain financially sound,” Mellott said in the e-mail.
Mellott also said a long-coming effort to reinvent the print paper, dubbed internally as “AJC 2.0” are “in the final prototyping stage.” While the daily’s brass have talked enthusiastically about “2.0,” many rank-and-file journalists are sweating what may be around the corner. They fear it will herald a new round of cuts.
If newspapers disappear, who’s gonna be left to write, edit, and circulate news stories with sentences as wonderful as:
Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
As if we needed more evidence that daily newspapers are not a growth industry, Editor & Publisher has released more grim statistics. Of the nation’s 25 largest daily newspapers, virtually all of them saw a decline in paid circulation. The only papers to escape a downturn in weekday circ were the two biggest, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, which basically remained static. But c’mon, when is the last time anyone can remember actually buying a USA Today? If it weren’t for hotels and airports, this newspaper wouldn’t exist.
The biggest drop was experienced by the Dallas Morning News, whose weekday circ fell a breath-taking 10.6 percent. Ouch. The next-biggest decline was by our very own Atlanta Journal-Constitution, whose Monday-Friday circulation tumbled by 8.5 percent – to about 327,000 – followed by the Boston Globe, Newark’s Star Ledger and so on. The average drop looked to be somewhere around 4.5 percent.
It also seems that the AJC’s ranking among big-city newspapers slipped a couple of notches. Now the nation’s 18th-largest paper by circulation, it has fallen behind both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Cleveland Plain Dealer since last year. We mention this merely as trivia; only in New York, Chicago and a very few other cities with competing dailies do relative rankings have meaning.
E&P also helpfully lists Sunday circ numbers, and they are even more deflating. The ad-filled Sunday edition is the bread and butter for most newspapers, so this news is especially alarming. The Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News – a combined Sunday edition of the city’s two big dailies – tumbled a stunning 14.8 percent, while Newark readers tuned out to the tune of 12.3 percent. The only major dailies to see small increases in Sunday sales were the St. Petersburg Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The AJC fared slightly better than most, losing only 5 percent of its Sunday circulation since last year, which dropped it just under 5 million copies. This has to be viewed as good news at the AJC, which had seen much-steeper declines in previous months. Even now, AJC staffers and pollsters are feverishly working on what the company calls “AJC 2.0″ – a near-complete overhaul of the Sunday paper that may be unveiled before the end of the year. AJC editor Julia Wallace personally told CL last year that the Sunday paper would likely shrink in size.
The AJC ran an article over the weekend about the new stats, reminding readers that the size of the falloff was partly due to the paper’s decision to shrink its circulation zone in an effort to cut costs. But the headline smacked of Soviet-style spin: “AJC boosts print/online audience.” Polling has shown that, for reasons beyond our ken, AJC.com enjoys one of the healthier readerships among daily newspaper websites. But as any media consultant will tell you, online readers don’t pay the bills.
What does all of this mean for CL and other alternative weekly newspapers? Sorry for the cop-out, but it’s tough to say. One of the reasons for the decline in paid newspaper readership is that, with the ascendancy of the Internet, people have come to view media as something that should be free. But consumption of the printed word – free or otherwise – is slowly declining as well, which doesn’t bode well for newspapers in general.
Nope, that’s not a joke.
Jay Smith, president of Cox Newspapers — that tentacle of the Coxtopus that runs the AJC, 16 other dailies and a gaggle of non-dailies — is retiring.
Smith has presided over the dramatic circulation declines and editorial deterioration in Atlanta and most other Cox cities. The internal statement obtained by CL calls those accomplishments “distinguished service.”
However, Cox sources say that the company’s potentate, James Cox Kennedy, has told the group’s editors that the AJC is on track to lose $17 million this year, and that Smith’s retirement was forced. “Rather abruptly,” one Cox employee said.
But whatever else, Smith was a solid news guy, widely respected by other newspaper editors.
The new boss, however, isn’t the same as the old boss. Sandy Schwartz, the new president of Cox Newspapers, will also remain as president of Cox Auto Trader. Those are the little publications available at service stations. Other than the fact that they’re published on newsprint, it’s a little difficult to see the relationship to journalism. To be fair, Schwartz also has a background in journalism. But, it’s telling about the newspaper industry that Cox feels its future lies in the direction of publications that have no content other than advertising. Who needs all of those grouchy journalists, anyway?
(Cox previously owned 25 percent of CL, and Smith served on our board. We felt Cox was using its stake to gain inside information on CL, which Cox then used to launch its faux alternative newspaper, AccessAtlanta. We subsequently bought back our stock from Cox.)
Here’s the entire statement from Cox:
After 37 years of distinguished service with Cox Newspapers, Jay Smith has announced his decision to retire on May 1.
Succeeding Jay will be Sandy Schwartz who will become president of Cox Newspapers while retaining his current position as president of Cox Auto Trader. Over the next few months, Jay will work closely with Sandy and with Brian Cooper, executive vice president of Cox Newspapers, to ensure a smooth transition.
Jay has done a tremendous job of leading Cox Newspapers aggressively through a number of transformations to respond to a rapidly evolving media environment, and Cox is grateful for his talent, courage, leadership and dedication. In 1971, he joined Cox as a reporter for the Dayton Daily News, where he also worked as assistant city editor, assistant managing editor, business manager and eventually, publisher. He spent seven years as publisher of the Atlanta newspapers, and also headed the Austin American-Statesman. In 1994 he was named president of Cox Newspapers. Jay leaves behind an impressive tradition of excellence in newspaper publishing and is past chairman of the board for the Newspaper Association of America. He also serves as a board member of the Associated Press.
As the newspaper landscape continues to shift rapidly, Sandy is uniquely positioned to meet the challenge head on as our business evolves.
Eighteen of Sandy’s 23 years with the company have been with Cox Newspapers. He joined Cox in 1985 as a features editor of the Tribune Newspapers in Mesa, Arizona and rose through the ranks to become editor and was later named president and publisher in 1995. He then served as vice president and general manager at both The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Austin-American Statesman, and later as executive vice president of Cox Newspapers. Since 2003, he has complemented his print journalism background with significant digital media experience, first serving as vice president of business development for Cox Enterprises, from 2003-2006, and then moving to his current role, leading AutoTrader.com, AutoTrader Publishing, and Auto Mart.
While we are ever appreciative of Jay’s years of service and the unparalleled standard he has set for the industry, Sandy’s experience and success at Cox during times of unprecedented change make him a natural fit to ensure that Cox Newspapers continues to deliver the quality content to readers when, where, and how they want it.
Our company is graced with many who share a commitment to the Cox Values, our employees, audiences, shareholders and the communities we serve – and you would be pressed to find better examples of leaders than Jay and Sandy. I know you will join me in wishing Jay all the best on his retirement, which I know will be filled with friends, family and his first grandchild this summer. Please join me too in congratulating Sandy and in giving him your full support on his new responsibilities.
It’s pretty generally known that the Internet is changing the way newspapers do business, largely because more and more people get their news online these days.
But when you see the raw numbers, it can be jolting.
According to Editor & Publisher, major newspapers across the country have collectively lost 1.4 million readers in the past four years.
The AJC is faring worse than most other papers, with a circulation dropoff of 16.8 percent. Only the Los Angeles Times (20.2 percent), San Francisco Chronicle (28.8 percent) and Boston Globe (19.9 percent) have lost more daily readers among the country’s major newspapers.
The AJC’s daily average readership is 318,350, which is a 64,071 drop from 2003. That’s especially disconcerting since Atlanta is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country with a 10-county population that has topped 4 million people.
Helping to offset that, however, is the popularity of the AJC’s website. You just have to dig through all the celebrity clutter to find the news.
Editorial boards of Georgia newspapers outside metro Atlanta have harshly criticized the recently passed statewide water plan.
“Georgia lawmakers have wasted an opportunity to craft an elegant statewide water plan that would have required fewer fixes in the future.”
— Savannah Morning News, Jan. 22.
“In this instance [Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and state House Speaker Glenn Richardson], were peddling the statewide water plan, which is going up for legislative endorsement on a very, very fast track despite almost every written opinion about declaring it to be an insult to both common sense and Mother Nature.”
— Rome News-Tribune, Jan. 18
“What actually has been sliced, however, is the influence of the 143 counties outside the 16-county metro Atlanta region when it comes to how water will be allocated within Georgia.”
— Albany Herald, Jan. 20
Longtime Atlanta Journal-Constitution film critic Eleanor Ringel Gillespie isn’t retiring now that she’s left her newspaper home of 28 years. Gillespie was one of more than 40 veteran AJC employers who accepted a buyout package and left the company last week.
But, starting in September, she’ll write weekly movie reviews and feature stories for the Daily Report, a specialized newspaper serving the metro Atlanta legal community.
“We’re still the same paper, with an emphasis on legal issues,” says Daily Report Editor Ed Bean, who says he hopes to blend in more lifestyle coverage to appeal to his readership, which is mostly older and well-educated.
Bean says he called Gillespie as soon as he heard she was leaving the AJC because, after nearly three decades as Atlanta’s best known movie critic, she has a strong local following that trusts her opinion.
“As a reader, I can say that the best critics have a voice and readers calibrate the reviews to that voice to determine whether they might like a certain movie,” Bean says. “The reviewer’s name does mean something to readers.”
Kevin Sack, the Pulitzer-winning New York Times Atlanta bureau chief turned Pulitzer-winning Los Angeles Times Atlanta national correspondent, has returned to the Times — er, the NY one.
He tells CL that as an Atlanta national correspondent for the N.Y. Times, he’ll be covering “health care reform and the health care crisis.”
Sack left the N.Y. Times in 2002, unhappy with then-editor Howell Raines’ decision to reassign him to the Washington, D.C. bureau. (He has a young daughter in Atlanta to whom he wished to remain close.) Rather than leave the ATL, Sack signed on as the L.A. paper’s man in Atlanta — and promptly won his second Pulitzer for his and Alan Miller’s 2002 series on a military aircraft dubbed “The Widow Maker,” a vertical take-off Harrier jet that was linked to the deaths of nearly four dozen pilots.
“Oddly enough,” Sack says, “the Harrier story was my first story for them.”
(While at the N.Y. Times, Sack had earned the Pulitzer for his contribution to the 15-author 2000 series, “How Race Is Lived in America.”)
With the recent resignations of two L.A. Times editors, John Carroll and Dean Baquet — who quit in protest of a corporate push to further downsize the paper’s staff — the L.A. paper had, according to various accounts, become a dismal place to hang one’s hat.
Sack says his departure from the paper was “precipitated more by the general instability at the L.A. Times. Certainly, Dean’s departure and the departure of John Carroll before him and the departure of two publishers are part of that, and the recent sale of the company.”
Asked whether he’ll remain in Atlanta, Sack says, “There’s a general understanding that I’ll be here for a while.”
As long as he keeps filing his top-notch investigative stories from Atlanta, it’s no loss for us.
