More cuts in Atlanta

I flew through there the other day and picked up the AJC while changing planes -- fortunately didn't have to change terminals -- and frankly that place is killing itself. There was close to nothing in the sports section that was all that interesting. There were six staff stories (counting a column) and that was it.

The rest of the paper was pretty darn thin and not too exciting.

I almost never feel this way, but I certainly didn't feel like I got my 75 cents worth.

 

The same thing happened to me not too long ago and I was shocked. In many ways it looked, and felt, like the weekly paper at which I started more than 30 years ago -- except that it was a lot narrower.

 

They still have a good sports staff — Steve Hummer is as good as they come — but they’ve lost a ton of people just in the last couple years alone. (If memory serves, they won the Triple crown in 2007). There are probably more recent departures than this even:

Beat writers
Tony Barnhart (Colleges)
Carter Strickland (Colleges)
Matt Winklejohn (Colleges)
Steve Wyche (Falcons)
Craig Custance (hockey)
Stan Awtrey (Golf)

Other (good) writers
Jack Wilkinson
Michelle Hiskey
Bill Sanders
Scott Bernarde
Mike Tierney
Guy Curtright

Editors
Jeff D’Allesio
Virginia Lewis

Moved to other departments
Rana Cash (Georgia Tech)
Ken Sugiura (NFL)

I don’t think ANY of them were replaced from the outside.

 

That's quite a list. And you're right that it's not complete. Here are some more ...

Preps
Todd Holcomb (unconfirmed specifically, but almost certain ... if anybody hears otherwise, please post and accept my apologies)
Glenn LaFollette
Rob Morton
Michael Alpert
Jeff Haws
Kurt Aschermann

Moved to other departments
Derrick Mahone to Cobb County cops & courts (involuntarily, FWIW)

Not sure about Michael Carvell, their recruiting guy. But I think he's staying.

Basically, the entire preps operation is gutted. From desker's list, Rana Cash, Craig Custance and Stan Awtry also used to be preps writers/editors fewer than 3 years ago.

 

According to Creative Loafing, Atlanta's alt-weekly, "In 2006, full-time newsroom staff numbered about 500."

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2009/03/25/ajc-plans-to-cut-staff-30-percent/

Holy shit, that's more than half the full-time newsroom staff (and, basically, all the part-time staff) lost in 3 years.

 

I'm hoping Kevin Whaley -- the best word editor I ever worked for and a Georgia native whose career goal was to work for the AJC -- remains safe. :'(

 

i don't think any of us are safe

 

That's a pretty good list, but Ken Sugiura has been back in sports since the end of last summer as one of our Georgia Tech reporters. (And he has done a great job.) Todd Holcomb has been kicking butt on high school enterprise. (He has been a part-timer for the seven-plus years I've been in Atlanta, but he does APSE-award-winning work.)

 

BTW, you can add Wendy Parker to the list of sports writers who left the paper. Wendy was one of the national authorities on women's hoops and also knows a heck of a lot about soccer.

 

It's a shame what has happened to the paper that prided itself on "covering Dixie like the dew."
When Wallace and the rest of Cox came up with this revolutionary plan of disseminating news a while back, I thought a lot of heads would roll immediately. That didn't happen. I fear this time, they are going to go into slash and burn mode.
And many of the names listed haven't been in Atlanta for five years.