AJC circ drops 24.7 percent MORE, quality of sports section drops 2,470 percent

Re: AJC circ drops 24.7 percent MORE, quality of sports section drops 2,470 perc

People have time for the paper. Lots of time. They just choose to use it for inane text messages, Twitter and Facebook updates and other things.

 

The AJC's website is even worse. Just the most inane, pointless crap imaginable. And I have no idea if they run them in print, but it seems like they run a story about the weather forecast nearly every day. Even if the forecast is for perfectly seasonable conditions. They tweet the weather, as well. Absurd.

 

You knew something was amiss when my parents quit taking the AJC because, "We can read it online for free."

My parents are 65.

When you're losing the 60-something set to online, it's time to rethink the business model.

 

I know some people will say page counts are overrated, but they aren't. People do notice them.

I've been through Atlanta a few times, but not since the grand revamp of the AJC. The old AJC would usually be pretty thick most days... like every other city, Mondays and Tuesdays would be the weaker days but the AJC usually weighed in about 50-60 pages. It gradually built up from there; the Thursday through Saturday editions were around 90-100 pages and Sunday was thick. You knew for 50 cents you were going to get a pretty nice product.

Flash forward to 2010; two-thirds of the daily product has been gutted (the AJC's about what, 40 pages every day?), the price has been doubled. And people wonder why the paper is suffering. Dallas was headed down that similar road but thankfully the management realized adding pages back to the paper could help add value (what a concept!)

I echo everyone else here. The AJC was at one time a spectacular read, but it has since fallen far, fast and tragic.

 

"Ahul, ahul, let's make more with less . . . hee-haw . . . "

-- Splay-Toothed Management Tool/Douche

 

There are still millions of people who have time for anything resembling a real paper.

You-all can take it from there.

 

Re: AJC circ drops 24.7 percent MORE, quality of sports section drops 2,470 perc

The quality — or lack thereof — most certainly is tied to the drop in circulation. Just look at the timeline. We've been a wired world for half a decade or more; the big AJC's circulation drops are in the last 2 years and change, exactly when they lost half their staff. Some of it, for sure, is no longer distributing to certain counties. But not this latest one. No excuse for that.

Mizzougrad is right about it being a top-5 section. In fact, I'd say it was a top-3 section as recently as 2005-06. Them, KC and pick your other one; maybe Dallas or Boston (back then). Triple Crowns are Triple Crowns. You don't luck into those.

I'm an SEC grad with a lot of family in metro Atlanta, so they send me sections every 2 weeks. Mizzougrad is also right about their college coverage being better than anyone's — and it wasn't even close. (Orlando used to do a nice job when Huguenin was running things but they didn't have the sheer quality the AJC did — of people or pages). The AJC used to do 5 OPEN PAGES of college football every weekday (talking 2004-06, not light years ago). The only exception was Saturday, when they had a very cool 10-page college football preview section, which they matched on Sundays with a 12- to 14-pager. Not to mention the free-standing 10-page national signing day sections they did. (I'm not a recruiting guy but they even found ways to make their coverage interesting).

Can't tell you how many story formats and ideas I've "borrowed" from them. Not now. I don't need any help in telling an 18-inch gamer or preview box.

Back to the original point, about quality impacting circulation. Just look at the college writing staff there now vs. then. I never had the pleasure of working there but as an avid reader/fan, I know the bylines as well as my co-workers'.

— Tony Barnhart covered the SEC (and a little ACC) and was probably the paper's most recognizable name. Gone. Now strings lame "5 burning questions" columns for them online (and from the look of it doesn't get an edit).
— The exceptional Mike Knobler, who I've admired since his Jackson, Miss., days, covered Tech football. Gone.
— Steve Wyche, then Carter Strickland covered UGA football. Gone. And gone.
— The college editor, Jeff D'Alesio, wrote a bunch and planned it all. Gone.
— Matt Winkeljohn covered Tech hoops. Gone.
— He followed Rana Cash on Tech. Gone from sports. Now writes some weird living-on-a-budget column.
— Jeff Hood wrote about recruiting every day, 3-4 times a day. Gone.
— Chip Towers covered UGA hoops. Gone from print. They made him an online news guy, then gave him the online recruiting beat, which has fallen way off since they started it.

With Atlanta such a melting pot for SEC alums and so many kids from there playing at SEC schools, they did almost daily in-season features and enterprise, especially with college football. For those, they turned to the exceptional team of GAs they had.
— Like Michelle Hiskey, maybe the best writer at the paper. Gone.
— Like Jack Wilkinson, maybe the second-best. Gone.
— Like Bill Sanders. Gone.
— Like Thomas Stinson. Byline's gone. They made him a copy editor.
— Like Steve Hummer. All but gone; he only writes on Sundays.

And that's JUST colleges, JUST the past couple years. I dug around the web a little to jog my memory. Tell me another section — sports, news, any section anywhere — that's lost this kind of writing talent in 5 years' or less time. (I'm sure it's the same on the design, photo and copy editing side; I just don't know those names).

— They had a terrific 1-2 NHL-NBA punch in Craig Custance and Sekou Smith. Gone. Gone.
— Stan Autry did a nice job with golf after replacing Glenn Sheely (gone) around 2006. Gone.
— They devoted a ton of resources (and space) to high schools, with Todd Holcomb, Curtis Bunn, Scott Bernarde, Darrell Maxie, Derrick Mahone and John Manasso. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. And gone.
— Rick Minter was one of the 3 most connected NASCAR writers in the country. Gone.
— They had 4 columnists, including an African-American in Terence Moore (gone) and a living legend in Furman Bisher (gone).
— Their top 3 sports editors until 2007 or so were Ramos (left for NCAA after getting jerked around in one of their many reorgs), D'Alesio (left for TSN) and Virginia Lewis (out of the biz, I believe).

Amazingly, they STILL have 2 great Braves writers (David O'Brien and Carroll Rogers), two great columnists (Jeff Schultz and Mark Bradley) and two great college writers (Tim Tucker, Ken Sugiura).

But if you look at that section daily — I get it sent to me still and see maybe 3-4 sections a week — it's as if they're not even trying anymore. I don't blame them; I'd be defeatist too. There's just nothing unique, nothing special. They NEVER used to have a bad day — what you got inside the section was often as good as the stuff on the front not so long ago; now, they rarely even have an interesting centerpiece. And if it is, the byline often reads "For the AJC."

Rant over.

 

Re: AJC circ drops 24.7 percent MORE, quality of sports section drops 2,470 perc

From talking to those in the know, that Ronnie Ramos "loss" was addition by subtraction.

But you nailed it, Dicky B. Their pro coverage (other than the Braves and Craig C on hockey) has always been blah, but their college coverage has been second to none. But that's been a couple years.

I hear they didn't even enter sections in the APSE contest this year. Not worth the postage.

 

Sounds like the AJC is much like what the Post-Dispatch is today: little more than a pamphlet.

 

We place partial stories on the web...teasers basically for the full version in print. Just got an angry comment from an out-of-state reader asking in so many terms where the bleeping full version was. I e-mailed back letting him know that we mail out all our subscriptions and gave him the number to call to pay for one.

We update our site on a nightly basis and put breaking stories on there, but we use it as a place to give people a taste of what's going on. If people want the full details they need to pay for the information we provide.

 

Good for you!
Does it take a rocket scientist to tell these publishers that they fucked themselves?? Like the 65 year old parents decided. They get it free on the Web of course they won't subscribe.
And like the person on here said. The Atlanta papers was once a must read. All papers have gone downhill in coverage. No papers are a must read anymore. The business did it to itself. Morons and simpletons are in charge of newspapers.

 

Too many publishing degrees, not enough business-sense.