By Julia Wallace
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, March 08, 2009

Two weeks ago, you heard from our publisher, Doug Franklin, about the economic challenges at this newspaper and newspapers across the country. Last week, you heard from our head of sales and marketing about his team's efforts to effectively sell advertising in the Atlanta market.

Today, it's my turn. I want to give you more detailed information on the content changes ahead in the next two weeks. I also want to respond to your questions to our publisher about what we are doing to make sure our news and editorial pages are fair and balanced.

The e-mails and letters that Doug received and the constant communication I have with readers reinforce the special relationship we have with readers. We come into your homes and are an important part of your lives. We treasure that connection and the great passion you have for what we do.

We are the most comprehensive and critical source for local news in metro Atlanta. We know that you depend on us for aggressive investigative reporting. We know that you want us to take you inside Atlanta's institutions and tell you what's happening. We know you want us to do our part to make this community a better place.

Every day, we tell you the news of the metro area and the world. On Sundays, we offer a heavy dose of unique local content -- everything from a weekly "spotlight" column on issues affecting your health and pocketbook to a new business column by veteran reporter and editor Thomas Oliver to lively profiles and features about people in our community. We have recently begun "cover stories" on every section, providing an interesting and in-depth feature that you can count on every week.

In the past two years, we have had to make cuts and choices. As we've done that, we've listened to you—focusing on that critical local work you expect and need us to do.

In making these difficult decisions, we relied on consumer research involving thousands of readers. Still, as Doug said in his letter to readers two weeks ago, we can't do everything we want or everything you want.

Because of our economic realities and the high cost of newsprint, we need to tighten up the amount of paper we use. In the past several weeks, you've seen that, with less space in every section. In the next two weeks, you will see some more changes. They are: changes in daily Business, Sunday features, the Sunday TV section and Sunday comics. For details, see the list on the right.

None of these choices has been easy. A newspaper is a wonderful mix of hundreds of features. Anytime we cut something, we know someone will miss it.

Now...let me discuss the issue that generated the most questions and comments to our publisher. Some readers believe we do a good job of being fair in our coverage and providing a balance of opinions. A few think we're too conservative. But many more believe that our editorial pages are too liberal and that bias seeps into our news coverage. We have heard you on the bias issue and are taking deliberate steps to address this.

On the news pages, we have several editors who are assigned to look for bias and balance issues in stories and headlines. This has led to fairer coverage—more care in our play of stories as well as more straightforward approaches in headlines and local and wire stories. We continually discuss this issue with our staff and will continue to put an emphasis on critical editing focused on fairness.

On the opinion pages, we are in a concerted march toward providing a rich marketplace of views, including liberal, conservative and others that defy labeling. We are in the process of selecting a new full-time conservative columnist. We have opened this up to the public and also asked you to let us know what you think of the sample columns from the finalists. We received 750 responses from people—giving us excellent feedback as we winnow the field. When this process is complete, we will have this new columnist three times a week, as well as Jim Wooten once a week, Bob Barr once a week, Cynthia Tucker twice a week and Jay Bookman twice a week, giving us a much stronger local columnist lineup than ever. Our new commentary editor keeps a running count of conservative and liberal columns on the pages to make sure we are balanced.

In this world, we know you want facts that are verified and not passed through a filter of bias. That is one of the important functions the press performs that our Founding Fathers valued so highly—providing information without being beholden to anyone.

These are difficult economic times for newspapers and many other industries. Those who do work that is valued and do that work well will survive these tumultuous times. We know the critical role we play in this community. We take that mission very seriously.

Let us keep the dialogue going. I will be on ajc.com/ conversation Sunday morning to talk with you about these issues or others. I look forward to hearing from you. Or you can e-mail me at tellus@ajc.com.

COMING CHANGES

• The stand-alone Sunday Business section will remain, but the Tuesday-Saturday Business section will no longer be a separate section. It will become part of the A section Tuesday-Saturday. This was a difficult decision. After all, Atlanta is a business town. We will work hard to retain our strength as the premier place for local business news, while offering highlights from the national and international scene. We will organize the A section into chapters -- first nation and world, then business and then opinion. The business chapter will begin with a full page heavily devoted to local business. On additional pages, we will keep the very popular national and world business briefs package along with Wednesday's list of local CD yields. We also will keep the markets page, with the stock listings as well as some of the other current features. The largest loss will be some of the national business stories we now run. This begins Tuesday.

Beginning Sunday, March 15:

• The TV preview section will become an eight-page full-color tabloid. It will have daily and weekend grids and a short list of best bets. The new product will be significantly less expensive for us to provide because it is printed on our own presses and uses less paper. We know that the current TV book will be missed by a relatively small, but loyal, group of readers. In other cities, they have come to like new full-color grids -- such as those we will offer -- and we hope the same will be true of readers here.
• The three Sunday feature sections -- Living & Style, Arts & Leisure and Travel -- will be combined into one section, called Living & Arts. This new section will be significantly larger than each of the current feature sections, but it will have fewer pages than their combined total. We know some readers prefer separate feature sections, but others said they liked having a combined section. The key for most was maintaining the mix of topics. We have worked to do that.
• The two comics sections will be combined into a six-page comics section. We will lose three of our current 38 Sunday comics, "Frazz," "DeFlocked" and "Night Lights and Fairy Flights." The comics we are cutting are among those with the lowest readership, according to a recent survey.

By W. Michael Clay
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, March 01, 2009

Last week, you heard from our publisher, Doug Franklin, about the challenges facing the AJC and the importance of advertising to our company's business model.

Today, I'd like to provide some additional perspective on the advertising environment and strategies we are pursuing at the AJC. We are operating in unprecedented economic times, as are our advertisers who provide approximately 75 percent of our revenue.

In addition to these current economic realities, our readers now get information in so many different ways. This fragments the spending on advertising, meaning advertisers are spending less on traditional media. These changes have required the AJC to evolve as a company.

In the world of advertising, it's all about the size, quality and engagement of the audience a particular medium, such as a newspaper, can deliver for businesses to reach consumers like you.

It's been well publicized that the newspaper industry is facing challenges and declining circulation, and the AJC is not immune to these challenges. However, circulation is only one measure. Another key measure is the total audience you reach, and the AJC is seeing growth in our combined print and online audiences. Research shows the weekly AJC print and online audience is nearly 2.3 million people, an increase of 3.4 percent compared with one year ago.

This means more than half of all adults in metro Atlanta read the newspaper or visit ajc.com every week, proving we remain the leading source, both in print and online, of news, information and advertising for metro Atlanta.

Digital, print and direct mail

Our primary challenge on the advertising side is one of perception, the perception that we are only a newspaper. And though our newspaper brings in the lion's share of advertising revenue, we are in fact a multimedia organization, offering advertisers solutions on three very powerful and distinct media platforms—digital, print and direct mail.

Since we are a multimedia company, we must position ourselves as such to the advertising community.

To help the business community better understand our capabilities, last month we introduced AJC Media Solutions and rebranded our advertising and marketing organization under this name. This is a complete reposition of the AJC's advertising and marketing proposition. AJC Media Solutions is a multimedia approach that houses our portfolio of digital, print and direct-mail products that advertisers can use to reach their customers.

AJC Media Solutions account executives now have responsibility for selling across this portfolio. In the past, they sold individual product groups such as print or digital or direct mail, creating a situation where multiple people from the AJC were visiting a single advertiser.

We talked extensively to our customers about this, and they vastly preferred the portfolio sales approach and a single point of contact. This makes it easier for them to buy media across our three platforms, and it drives better results for them. Ultimately, satisfying our advertisers' needs makes our organization financially sound.

Sophisticated ad targeting

To that end, we have invested aggressively in online and can provide our advertisers with digital solutions to nearly any marketing need, from interactive display ads and search-engine marketing to e-mail and mobile services.

Our partnerships with companies such as Yahoo allow us to offer advertisers the most sophisticated ad targeting available, to assure that consumers see messages most relevant to their needs.

The combination of local Yahoo and ajc.com enables our advertisers to reach an impressive 73 percent of Atlanta's online users. We're also able to help advertisers target their customers through enhanced direct-mail capabilities, connecting with consumers at specific ZIP code and household levels.

Upcoming AJC redesign

At the same time, we are talking with advertisers about exciting opportunities in our upcoming redesign of the AJC.

Research shows consumers highly value advertising content in the paper for planning and saving money. Now more than ever, we know this is important to you.

In May, we will introduce a redesign that makes the newspaper easier and more enjoyable to read, while enhancing color capabilities and creating innovative ad opportunities for our advertisers.

I am confident we are taking the right steps to meet advertisers' needs and to continue to remain Atlanta's premier advertising and audience provider.

Next Sunday in this spot, Editor Julia Wallace will explain more specifically the changes ahead in print content.

We know readers value the ads, coupons and savings inserts they find in the AJC as a way to stretch budgets. That's more important now than ever. I'm confident as you enjoy today's paper, you'll find many ways to save money and time, and I hope you will support these businesses who advertise with us.

Contact me at comments@ajcmediasolutions.com. Also, I invite you to learn more about AJC Media Solutions by taking a tour of our new advertiser-dedicated Web site—YourAudienceDelivered.com.

Out of 100, ajc.com is 8th

By Kristi E. Swartz
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, February 13, 2009

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's ajc.com was ranked 8th in a 2008 list of top 10 newspaper sites by Web consulting firm the Bivings Group, the company said Thursday.

Bivings, a Washington-based Internet communications company, develops Web programs for corporations, trade associations, advocacy groups, political candidates and nonprofits.

The firm's annual list is compiled based on the 100 largest newspapers in the United States and by "their abundance of Web features," design and usability, the company said.

Bivings gave top 10 billing to Web sites of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

"The other Web sites on the list are good company to be in, and I think their comments are a nice validation of the nice improvements that we've tried to bring our readers in the site updating work we've been doing in January," said Hyde Post, the AJC's vice president, Internet.

Ajc.com and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are owned by Cox Enterprises Inc. Ajc.com launched a redesign of its Web site in January.

"We continue to review the feedback that our users are sending us, and we'll continue to improve the experience," Post said.

By Doug Franklin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, February 22, 2009

First, thank you for reading this newspaper. For generations, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has played a vital role in our community - informing, engaging, challenging. We've made a difference, but you have made it possible by becoming informed citizens and supporting our business.

We've never needed you more. We can only be a strong, free press - beholden to no one - if we are profitable. Right now, the AJC - and other newspapers across the country - are struggling financially.

For years, the AJC was sustained by classified and retail advertising. This revenue allowed us to deliver the newspaper to you 365 days a year at a very reasonable price. But as people turned to the Internet, classified listings declined. Our retail advertisers have been forced by current significant economic challenges to reduce their ad spending.

This is our challenge. We know you depend on us more than ever. The latest data from the research firm Scarborough shows that about 2 million people in Atlanta read the AJC every week. We provide more in-depth local news and information than any other source. We also know you continue to rely on us for the best shopping information from our advertisers. In these tough economic times, you want to spend your money wisely, and our advertisers help you do so.

So ... how do we face these financial challenges? It won't be easy. Just like you, we have to live within our limited means.

No business can lose money for long, and we are working day and night to turn this around. We are making difficult decisions: we have cut staff, frozen pay, reduced our circulation area and taken a sharp pencil to all our business costs.

We're listening to you more than ever. In the past year we heard from thousands of readers - through surveys, focus groups and other feedback channels - who have guided the changes we've made so far. We know that we're at our best when we act on what we learn from our readers.

We can't do everything we want or everything you want. We've already made some tough choices. More are coming:

• 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.

These choices weren't easy, but we made them by balancing our financial needs against what we have learned about what you, our readers, value most. We also listened to what you told us about what you expect from our daily and Sunday newspapers:

Daily, you want a quick and efficient read that gets you up to speed on the day's news. Sunday, you want a more leisurely read that tells you the why behind the news and provides you enjoyment and learning.

In both daily and Sunday, you believe we play an important role in building a stronger community. We have dramatically stepped up our investigative efforts. We've added two business columnists and made great strides to simplify and better organize the newspaper. We have redoubled our efforts to present important local news while still providing the national and international coverage you want.

In May, we will introduce a redesign that makes the newspaper easier and more enjoyable to read.

We also have worked hard to create news pages that are free of bias and opinion pages that are balanced. We have reached out to the community to select a replacement for retiring conservative columnist Jim Wooten. We've heard from nearly 200 candidates and have winnowed the list down to about a dozen finalists. Later this week, we'll share sample columns by the finalists on ajc.com.

As we continue changing, we want to have a dialogue with you. Next week, you'll hear from our senior vice president of revenue about what he and his team are doing to offer more options to advertisers. Then, the following week, you'll hear from our editor, explaining more specifically the content changes ahead.

We want your guidance as we move ahead. I look forward to working with you all to build a very successful future for this newspaper and this community. Please let us know what you think by e-mailing me at tellus@ajc.com.