I am a long-time observer and sometimes participant in Atlanta’s media ecosystem. As a child, I read the Atlanta Constitution, starting with the comics; it was delivered to our house because the Constitution had a more progressive editorial policy than the afternoon paper, the Atlanta Journal, until they merged in 1982 and became the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The newspaper certainly helped Atlanta become the South’s leading economic engine and burnished its image as a moderate voice in racial struggles. But today, when we examine the city’s paper of record and its owner, the sprawling Cox Enterprises, we see how the paper has changed over the years and how it is likely not serving the needs of Atlantans.
A major shift in the paper came with last year’s decision to cease printing the AJC and instead produce a digital-only journal. Shock waves went through the community of those of a certain age. Younger people responded with a big, collective yawn.
Where’s my paper?
In a letter last August, Andrew Morse, AJC’s president and publisher, announced the AJC would stop the print edition of the paper. He promised to “continue to invest in distinctive journalism, well-sourced beat reporting and surprising and delightful storytelling.” But there were things he did not tell us:
- That a few weeks after stopping the print presses, the AJC would lay off 15% of its staff, half of whom were reporters,
- That the prize-winning and gifted political cartoonist, Mike Luckovich, would appear less frequently,
- That the “Living” section type articles would decrease in number,
- That Andrew Morse, who drove the shift to all-digital, would be gone. After only three years in the job, he moved back to New York to spend time with his family, who had never moved to Atlanta,
- And that, despite all these cutbacks and staff reductions, the sports coverage would remain robust. The e-edition consistently has six pages of articles plus three additional pages of scores.
The AJC has rarely been a bastion of strong journalism in recent decades. I was a local news reporter in the early 1970s for an alternative news outlet, the Great Speckled Bird. When I reported on a particular issue, I would see that the Constitution either missed critical parts of the story, got facts wrong, or, most concerning, just didn’t cover important topics at all. Sadly, the average reader was mostly unaware of these deficits.
Atlanta has always had a strong streak of corporate boosterism. The city was built around a railroad crossroads, and it was burned to the ground during the Civil War. When city leaders adopted the mythic symbol of the phoenix rising from the ashes, it symbolized a spirit of resilience and a can-do mentality. But along with this came the idea that corporate and political leaders could decide what they thought was in the best interest of the city and its residents. It used to be the white downtown business community that was the decision-maker. Now the deciders are more diverse, with a majority of Black elected officials. Yet the power of corporate decision-making is still evident. As the dominant local newspaper, the AJC remains a key part of that business community, rarely pushing back on corporate consensus and frequently joining in the boosterism chorus.
“I think it is safe to say that Atlanta has been uniquely dominated by corporate media for a long time, and it’s gotten worse. Whenever I talk to people outside of Atlanta about the sort of media structure here, they’re really surprised that a city of our size, and frankly, its cultural and political significance, has so few [news] options,” said Hannah Riley Fernandez, board member of Atlanta Community Press Collective or ACPC.
“The loss of local journalism is, at its core, a transfer of power from community members to institutions. And basically, if there’s no robust local scrutiny, people just start getting away with so much,” continued Riley Fernandez. “When everything is behind a paywall, as the AJC is, you’re reaching people who can already afford to be informed. But I’m guessing the people who really need good accountability journalism are on the other side of the AJC’s digital paywall.”
Since the demise of the Bird more than 50 years ago, there has been a gap in hard-hitting local news and accountability journalism that no outlet has filled. Unlike Atlanta, most large and even medium-sized cities around the country have alternative weekly newspapers or outlets. Many of these do investigative and reporting work that the major daily newspapers won’t or can’t do.
Journalism across the U.S. is in dire straits. A recent report, The Local Journalist Index, quantifies the dramatic loss of local journalists nationwide. “In 2000, many Americans lived in a community with journalists — people whose job it was to cover school board decisions, announce small business openings and closures, root out corruption at city hall, warn commuters about road work, and trumpet the exploits of the high school teams. Today, most of those journalists are gone. The evaporation of local news coverage has hit small towns and big cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Even as the country has grown, we’ve lost journalists.”
But the demise of local journalists seems more critical in Georgia. Currently, this report ranks Georgia 46th among 50 states, with only 5.8 journalists per 100,000 people. Georgia is ranked lower than Alabama or South Carolina. And we’re seeing, in real time, cutbacks in staffing and coverage in Atlanta and across the state.
Former AJC investigative reporter Allie Gross told the Peach, “What Atlanta needs is a good local paper. If you’re trying to decide what a market wants and what people will pay for, people desperately want local news; they want to know what’s happening around them and want a place to feel connected. If the goal is to get subscribers and people, I think there has been a fundamental misunderstanding of the market and how to best serve Atlanta residents.”
Evidence is mounting that robust local news coverage also makes good economic sense for communities. A recent report by the nonprofit Rebuild Local News documents that the loss or lack of local news can lead to a significant increase in borrowing costs for local governments. The report explains that without journalists monitoring local officials, the risk of wasteful spending and corruption increases, and lenders respond by charging higher interest rates. This report unfortunately ranks Georgia as the fourth-highest state, with an extra annual municipal borrowing cost of $49 million due to news deserts.
What is to be done:
While Atlanta is now a large city without a print edition of their flagship newspaper, it can still be considered locally owned by the Cox family. Many daily newspapers have been bought by hedge funds for the sole purpose of wringing profits from the products. And in fact, in early 2019, Cox Enterprises announced a sale to investment firm Apollo Global Management of WSB TV and the Cox company’s radio, newspaper and TV properties in Ohio.
Atlanta does have some outlets offering local news coverage. However, one non-profit news outlet recently announced it was folding because of a lack of consistent funding. The Atlanta Civic Circle covered housing, democracy, and labor issues. Its website with recent articles is still accessible. Others with local news coverage include:
- 285 South is an English-language news outlet covering issues of Georgia’s immigrant communities.
- Rough Draft Atlanta is a series of outlets around the metro area of hyper-local news, arts, and cultural events.
- Canopy Atlanta is a community journalism model that collaborates with residents to tell stories of their neighborhoods.
- Georgia Recorder is a daily digital outlet that has some locally written news stories.
- The Current is an excellent source of news about coastal Georgia.
- The Appen Media Group is a family-owned series of local outlets in North Atlanta, including Decaturish.
- WABE radio has increased its local reporting staff and is posting articles on its website.
- And the Atlanta Community Press Collective, where Hannah Riley Fernandez (quoted above) and I serve as board members. This non-profit news outlet “empowers Atlantans to engage in civic participation and build a city led from the bottom up by holding government and those in power to account.“
Most of these outlets are free and offer newsletters that summarize recent articles. And most are structured as 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organizations.
Lastly, it should be noted that local news is important to the functioning of a democratic society.A few years ago, The Democracy Fund posted an article titled “How we know journalism is good for democracy.” They compiled and cataloged numerous academic studies showing a variety of effects of good local journalism on voting behavior. For example, local political coverage of local races correlates with increased voter turnout. And voters have been more likely to vote in down-ballot races in places with more local newspapers per capita. Another study showed that when a newspaper shuts down, fewer candidates run and incumbents are more likely to win. Clearly, Atlanta and Georgia have long been at a disadvantage without a stronger local news network. It’s something we need to fix.
Krista Brewer is a native Atlantan who has a professional background in writing, reporting and editing. For several decades she has closely followed Georgia politics, focusing on topics such as healthcare, voting and immigrant rights, and budget and environmental issues.