Confirmed: AJC To Leave Atlanta For Perimeter
Decatur Metro | August 17, 2009Wow.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) confirmed Monday it will leave its downtown headquarters and makes its new home in Atlanta’s Perimeter submarket in the first quarter of 2010.
The new AJC headquarters will be 223 Perimeter Center Parkway, across the street from the Dunwoody MARTA station and outside the Perimeter. The building is Macy’s former Southeast headquarters.
Welcome to the new normal. The one where AJC reporters lunch at Perimeter Mall instead of on Broad Street.
UPDATE: Scott Henry notes on Fresh Loaf that the AJC has done business in downtown Atlanta for over 140 years. The AJC’s official note includes this not so compensatory tidbit…
The AJC remains committed to covering downtown, Joseph said. The paper will maintain its Capitol bureau and also plans to add an intown bureau for reporters, he said. Details on the intown bureau have not been determined.
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I am surprised they are still in business….must be online giving them a pulse.
The AJC is a dinosaur, with three feet in a tar pit.
Just a late acknowledgement from the AJC that its readers left downtown long ago and moved north. If the AJC concentrated on doing hyperlocal news for each northern county, they might regain some readership.
I am always out of it, in the minority, out of style, behind the times, not with it. I actually LIKED the AJC and ordered it 7 days a week. It wasn’t the New York Times but it wasn’t a Gannett chain either. It had stories I wanted to read every day. No matter where I live, I always get the local paper even it’s a real dink paper in a real dink town. It’s how I get a feel for the local color and how I find out about what to do if I’m new in town. I also read on-line but I find the paper more useful for the pool, beach, carpool lines, MARTA, eateries, in bed, and of course….in the bathroom! And there’s something about the Jumble, crossword puzzle, and Sudoku that works better on newsprint than on the screen or a print-out. You need that certain texture and je-ne-sais-quoi newsprint smell.
I still get the AJC 7 days a week but, the thinner it gets, the less satisfying it becomes.
Who cares where the AJC is located? Printed news is a dying business model and the AJC’s existing website is just a re-hash of the same AP headlines available anywhere else. I get better local news from blogs like this one.
Hi David-I fixed your post for you:
David says:
August 17, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Who cares where the AJC is located? Printed news is a dying business model and the AJC is just a re-hash of the same AP headlines available anywhere else.
Atlanta has a newspaper?!! Well I’ll be damned. News to me (I made a pun
).
Disclaimer: This post is intended as a joke. Any offense to newspaper readers, regardless of age, race, sex, orientation, weight, hair color, type of car, political affiliation or religion is unintended and accidental.
This makes me sad though. This is the paper of Henry Grady and Ralph McGill.
Grady was instrumental in moving the South from antebellum slavery and agrarian mindset towards a New South full of hope and promise- at least rhetorically. He also promoted Georgia Tech.
McGill promoted racial equality to the point where he was cast as villain in the South. His anti-segregation editorials won him a Pulitzer.
These men were both editors of the Constitution (for newbies, the AJC used to be two papers- the liberal morning Constitution and the more conservative [not wing nutty] afternoon Journal.) Atlanta used to have real journalism – the Constitution won around a dozen Pulitzers from the 1930s forward. This is sad.
Here’s a perspective:
http://likethedew.com/2009/08/18/walking-away-from-marietta-street/
Oh yes, I remember well, Nellie.
Don’t forget Jesse Outlar, Celestine Sibley, Jim Minter, it is a long list…
Yet, the AJC has been a shell of its journalistic self since what…1980? As to its’ benefit/loss to downtown Atlanta, not sure what that would be quantifiably? A pleasant memory, nostalgia? It was not a park, or a public space like a museum or library. I don’t see the great loss to the downtown area. Losing Rich’s, Davison’s, Muse’s? Those were losses. Ditto Municipal Auditorium.
But the offices of AJC…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
It’s still a shame that the largest city in the region can’t boast a quality newspaper- and hasn’t been able to for some time. The AJC shouldn’t worry about moving. It should worry about improving quality.
I am also struggling with this. But as SAAC implies, nothing lasts forever. And like it or not, the AJC is in no position to reinvent itself. It’s done a good job of overhauling it’s print paper, but who can really say if that’s enough….let alone whether the overhaul will result in better journalism. (fyi…page views/papers sold and “good” journalism don’t go hand-in-hand)
And since I’ll give support to anything that could result in more or quality journalism, I simultaneously hope the AJC can right itself and I hope to see more examples of new media entering the fold.
Regardless of what we hear, I don’t think anything at this point is a done deal. Either the AJC or the newbies could become Atlanta’s dominant force. The question is whether the AJC can use its natural advantage to retain Atlanta’s news dialogue or whether new media will use it’s lack of debt and old bureaucracy to out maneuver the old dogs. The outcome can and will vary from market to market.
So I have to take just a tiny little dig at DM. DM, you have trouble with your apostrophes. Keep in mind the difference between it’s and its. For example, from your latest comment:
“…news dialogue or whether new media will use it’s lack of debt and old bureaucracy…” That it’s should not have an apostrophe.
Sorry for being such grammar policeman.
It’s not DM’s fault. He has been eaten by the Random Apostrophe Demon.
But that’s just between me and you, right Eric?
The print model may be in trouble, but like it or not, the AJC is still the big dog in town when it comes to the amount of on-the-ground journalism that it produces.
You and I might not like a lot of the stories they choose to cover, but I’m not sure we can write them off just yet. Any individual certainly can if they want, but in terms of bigger picture news-gathering in Atlanta, they still have a bit more street cred than the two year old blogs.
Even if you don’t give a flip about the AJC, you can still admit this is quite a blow for downtown Atlanta.
Atlanta has a downtown?!! Well I’ll be… (just kidding, of course).
DM, I agree with you that this is tough on a downtown struggling to regain its footing. Losing the AJC, even in its current reduced form, will not help matters much. I don’t fault the AJC; they have to make the tough decisions to remain viable, but I hope we don’t see more operations moving north.
Are they taking the statue of Henry Grady with them?
Good one. But Grady Hospital is still downtown. Or is that a different Grady?
Why all the hate for the AJC? Print journalism is a tough horse to ride right now. Although there is a lot of chaff in the AJC, there is also some Pulitzer winning wheat too – if you are patient and look really hard. Granted its not the WSJ or the NYT, but the ATL is a far cry from NY.
But moving outside of the city limits to the soulless homogenized suburbs? It seem cynical, but the AJC doesn’t seem to get much love in the urb either. Guess I can’t blame ‘em.
How can a newspaper that quoted “The Jerk” on the front page this morning be all bad?
Do tell.
Was it “I never liked you anyway!” (Navin to Shi*head)
It was an article about how AT&T is looking to cease publishing the White Pages phone book. I think you can guess where it went from there…
At the risk of nitpicking, Brad, the burbs are not all soul-less and homogenized. But if you never leave ITP( or even Decatur), one would not know that.
… never leave ITP? I’ve lived there. There are both.
Is there a “View of the World from Decatur” yet like the series based on the original New Yorker view of the world from Manhattan (New Jersey large, California small on the horizon, little in between)? If not, I’ll collaborate with someone who can draw and maybe we’ve got a big seller at the next Decatur Arts Festival! I never go OTP except for recreational trips outside the Metro area or to see in-laws. It’s not that I’m against going OTP, I just don’t ever have any urges or reasons to do so. Even ITP, I find most of my needs more than met in a radius of whatever distance it is from Decatur to downtown. I get annoyed if I have to go as far as Midtown, Buckhead, or Dunwoody and I used to zip over those spots all the time when I was single.
I’ve got to put “expose my children to other areas” on my to-do list.
I had two couples of older OTP’ers inform me that 285 was referred to as “the ring around the jungle”. So I figured there’d be no reason to explore OTP (except state parks, camping, hiking…), hell, after growing up in Florida, I was tired of that attitude.