To AJC Readers from Editor, Julia Wallace: The Path Ahead for AJC (3/8/09)
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.
