The Next Step For The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Is To Go To Bubble Dialogue Over Cartoons

As some of you know, I live in Atlanta, Georgia. The home of the New South. The “city too busy to hate.” Martin Luther King, Jr. The financial center of the Southeast, unless you live in Charlotte, Orlando or Miami.

When I moved here there were two papers, The Atlanta Journal, as I remember was the afternoon paper, and The Atlanta Constitution, was the morning paper. They were, and are, owned by the Cox media conglomerate. Back then, they had different news and editorial staffs. Somewhere in the 90’s the papers hyphenated and began publishing only in the morning. The separate editorial staffs stayed on, and kind of stay on now. There are some knee-jerk liberals and their counterparts on the right.

What has always distinguished the local paper(s) has been its/their abiding mediocrity. They/it have always been pretty piss-poor when it comes to journalistic ability. The writers delve into news as far as the first point of resistance. On a regular basis they miss one of the “who, what, when, where, hows” in stories. There are exceptions to all of these criticisms of the paper; but, if you read The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune or one of several other papers on any kind of regular basis, you will notice the differences. I’m not talking about editorial point of view. I am talking about basic reportage. The “W’s” mentioned above. The AJC has never been very good.

But, it is the only game in town; so, I read the paper. My preference would be to hold the paper, be it while drinking coffee in the morning, or while eating lunch, or as a happy surprise when there’s nothing to read, before I hit the bed. Now, I read the AJC and the NYTimes online. Except on Sunday morning. Sometimes on Saturday. I hesitate to say it; but, civilization as I know it requires newsprint in your hand soon after you wake up on a weekend.

Though it has been coming on for awhile, the AJC has succumbed to joining the general dumbing down of America as a New Years resolution in 2007.

It started with the move of a fascinating daily feature called “Peach Buzz” from the second page of the “Living” section, the puff stuff, to the second page of the “Metro” section, which for the most part reports on local hard news. Peach Buzz reports on the comings and goings of Elton John (for those of you who don’t know, he has a two floor condo in a high rise here and is often sighted at local stores, he’s a really nice guy, spends a lot of money here and supports a lot of charities, as reported in the Buzz), who in the world of hip hop visited the currently trendy restaurant, bar or club (that has a publicist), you get the idea. The Buzz also tells us how old every celebrity in the United States is, starting with the oldest. I like that feature less and less each year as I age with the celebs. OK, that stuff is now hard news.

Last month, the AJC announced that it was cutting its newsroom staff by as much as sixteen percent by early retirement offers.

On Sunday, I read the final deathblow to print journalism in Atlanta. (As an aside, television news in Atlanta is and always has been abysmal. Radio news has pretty much one station, WSB, which is pretty much a local audio version of the old CNN Headline News before it hired Nancy Grace. No depth by format. As an aside rant to this aside, WSB has a morning reporter named Richard Sangster that has an annoying voice. He is relegated to breaking news. When he is introduced he invariably says “yeah [anchor name] the [cops, authorities, bad guys] are beside themselves on this one…yada, yada… Richard Sangster, WSB News, Live at yada, yada”).

OK, AJC. Sunday. The “Perspectives” section, which is the trendy name for the Editorial section.

“Free-trade effects: The good, the bad” is the title of the editorial. Those two words, good and bad, are important to remember because when you get done reading the editorial, beyond some disjointed factoids, I like that USA TODAY word, that’s all you are going to get. Some things are good others are bad. The editorial is like something done by a USA TODAY intern without supervision. Four charts and a picture of a car. An introductory paragraph and then four numbered sections with graphic arrows showing you which to read next (even though, remember, they are numbered). I quote from the first paragraph:

“President Bush wants to revive world trade talks – known as the Doha round – that were supposed to boost the economies of poor countries (good). The talks have stalled because the United States and Europe cling to protective farm policies at home (bad). Farm subsidies help:… A few large operators…Farm subsidies hurt:…Consumers[,] Taxpayers[,] Poor nations dependent on agriculture[.]”

There are more parentheticals with good and bad and other comments inside them. A few more facts, most without sources. NO analysis.

When I was in the fifth or sixth grade we had a unit in our English or Social Studies class on how to write and judge a news article or editorial. You were supposed to introduce your subject, lay out your facts and analysis and draw your conclusions. If the writer didn’t do that, you should discount what was written. If you were the offending author, you got a failing grade. To my mind the AJC gets a failing grade.

If the AJC doesn’t want to immediately go the way of the title of this post with bubbles and cartoons, it might want to take an interim step and use a :) rather than going to all of the trouble of typing the word good and a :( rather than typing bad in its editorials. That might increase its “readership.”