It will be 40 years next spring since I returned home to Atlanta from days away in college and began my career in Macon.
I moved into a modest Midtown apartment, within stumbling distance of Manuel’s Tavern, and as I set up my utilities, I began my subscription to The Atlanta Journal. That relationship will be 40 years old next spring.
Growing up in a newspaper and printing family, I can readily admit to a bias in favor of tangible, printed products. Though I have become a fan of a few podcasts, and occasionally will read an e-book with my Amazon Fire, this comic book nerd VASTLY prefers the in-hand hard copy for newspapers, books, comic books, magazines, and particularly for the bane of my existence ... event tickets.
I am not suggesting that I have always loved the copy, the editorial viewpoints, or even the selection of stories in the AJC ... but the talent combined inside was phenomenal, the reporting occasionally award-winning, and as to the daily chronicling of major happenings about the state and across the Southeast, there was no clearer voice.
At a point in the late ‘80s, while working for Georgia’s Secretary of State, the state and I were paying for three copies of the paper a day. The morning Constitution, the afternoon Journal, and at 4 p.m. the late street edition Blue Streak Journal, intended as a commuter ride home aide with evening news as well as still-breaking stories ahead of their broadcast competition in drive-time.
Our family competed with, as well as admired, the much more successful Cox Enterprises through a series of weekly newspapers based in DeKalb County. We even printed the AJC one day, after construction operations at the Five Points MARTA station knocked out power and the presses at 72 Marietta St.
At the peak of its operations, roughly coinciding with the Centennial Olympic Games, the AJC’s editorial/reporting staff numbered approximately 525, and revenue generated by the AJC alone in those years reportedly reached $4 billion. Though, as a private company, they did not publicly report earnings.
The biggest shock to my system with recent news of the demise of the AJC’s print edition was learning that across a 20-county metro region of more than six million, there are just over 40,000 remaining print subscribers. Doing the math on those household percentages makes voter turnout on a Special Election Primary Day look downright robust.
But ready or not, we will soon be turning this big page, as the daily newspaper market-wide will change the way we share and broadly communicate the news of the day. Many tell me this window has already closed. I just missed the shift change.
Anyway, wishing the AJC.com, AccessAtlanta (a founding subscriber via Prodigy), and the AJC E-Paper all well ... plus a few pointers to maximize their chances of success: Fix your search engine. You have better luck finding AJC stories on Google, Yahoo, or any number of specialized media databases.
Offer NEW and additional tiered content.I would not pay more for all of the interviews the sports desk has done with UGA Dawgs Coach Kirby Smart, but there are plenty of folks who would.
Add live feeds of multiple municipal, county, and school board meetings across the metro area, and an archive of the same. Create a one-stop marketplace for the public-facing version of local governance.
Stream the Georgia General Assembly Committee meetings and legislative sessions, stepping into a space that Georgia Public Broadcasting, minus federal funding, may not be able to afford in 2026 and beyond. Go deeper there.
Simplify and make the ability to clip, download, and share content more intuitive. If well-marketed, you create an additional revenue stream.
Expand partnerships and share credit with other news outlets for more in-depth coverage.
The AJC today cannot be everywhere at once.
I plan to remain a subscriber and have already opted in during an earlier online sale rate, as readers are not likely to pay several hundred dollars for the electronic version alone, without some of that “added” content I referenced above.
The AJC voluntarily retired some of its best talent last year, which was also to be expected, as payroll expenses began to exceed revenue. I wish Cox Enterprises and the AJC E-paper every success.
Perhaps in the future, consider listening more to your readers and longtime subscribers. Remember, it is always easier to keep a longtime customer than it is to develop and convert a new one.