My City Was Gone: The Death Spiral of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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My hometown paper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has released a list of the 74 newsroom staffers who will be released as a result of the paper’s cost-cutting efforts. I haven’t been living under a rock, and I receive almost daily reports of just how bad things were getting in the industry, but it wasn’t until I saw the list that the reality really hit home.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Atlanta actually published two daily papers – the more liberal Constitution, and the conservative Journal. I grew up in a household where news was more than just the ambient soundtrack played under dinnertime conversation. No matter how broke we were — and we were always broke — we always had a subscription to the Atlanta Constitution. One of my fondest childhood memories involves my dad taking me to the department store where my mother worked, propping me up at the lunch counter with a copy of the daily paper, and having me read it out loud to the people gathered there.

It was no surprise, then, that after cycling through several different majors (chosen because of their money-making potential), I finally settled in the journalism program at my alma mater. A crisis of confidence kept me from specializing in print journalism but I’ve always had a soft spot for newspapers.

Thanks to the internet and my inability to de-clutter my life, I no longer subscribe to a daily newspaper (I use PressDisplay instead). I know I’m as much a part of the problem as anyone who has switched to online sources for news. Even so, I understand that a local paper is an integral part to the health and vitality of a city. More and more papers are turning to national and international wire services for their stories, and in response many former journalists have turned to the web as a means of focusing on hyperlocal reporting.

There’s a danger in this entry reading like a eulogy. I know there are many news agencies who are being creative, adapting to the web and introducing the concept of multimedia and online reporting as a way of bringing new life into an old medium. That’s a worthwhile effort to be sure, but there’s just something incredibly sad about losing a cadre of reporters who have become such an integral part of a community that it becomes painful to think about how the community’s collective memory will change once it is filtered through the voices of people who have no real ties to that community, never mind those who may not be located within the community at all.

Henry Grady must be rolling in his grave.