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OPINION: Just for fun, let's talk about newspapersTue, 02/20/2007 - 6:04pm
By: Cal Beverly
A column of opinion by the publisher: Consider this a “letter to our readers.” I’d like to invite you inside for for some shop-talk. You probably by now have heard or read that our big city brethren, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, have “retrenched.” “AJC moves forward,” is the best-face headline the publisher put on his letter to the readers. As one of our presidents said, “I feel your pain.” And as one who has had to retreat from a few painful economic decisions in the past, I know it can’t have been easy for what has been the state’s newspaper to back out of two-thirds of Georgia. So in the midst of my celebration of the AJC’s abandonment of covering the west, south and east sides of Atlanta, I acknowledge that theirs was a sound business decision brought on by events beyond their control. But enough of magnanimity. Let’s talk about news and what’s left of news coverage in the south metro area. In the eggshell-tiptoeing AJC news story about their retreat, the publisher said that the eliminated Thursday zoned editions — including the Fayette and Coweta Extras — were dumped because they “don’t have enough advertising support.” Let’s be plain: They couldn’t sell enough Fayette and Coweta advertising to pay for the local bureau and the extra pages of printing. I sympathize. Newspapering is a tough business, especially with cable and every little mom-and-pop-operated direct mail coupon franchise eating away at the ad pie. The AJC had to pull back its print editions into downtown and north Atlanta because they were losing money everywhere else and they had no idea how to stop the hemorrhaging. They say they plan to continue covering the west, south and east sides of Atlanta, even though they have closed their local news bureaus in those locations. I have my doubts about those ambitions being realized. It takes boots on the ground, reporters at local meetings, for any news operation to truly be “local.” The same retrenchment story noted that about a sixth of their news staff — those news veterans with gray hair and over 55 — was being told to take severance pay or take their chances with having any jobs. Talk about doing more with less. I guess the AJC plans to parachute in random remaining rookie reporters from their downtown office whenever they hear about something of interest in Fayette County. Maybe that will work, but how many Fayette “local” stories do you really expect to see in the daily Metro section, much less on the front page? Nope, for better or worse, y’all are left with us and with the fluff piece out of Marietta and with that sometimes four days a week, sometimes three days a week thing that calls itself a daily. (Just as an aside: Do subscribers get a refund those weeks that it’s just three days? And how many days do you have to print to call yourself a daily? We print three days a week, so can I be called a daily too? Oh, please. We promise to spell-check our headlines.) Back to the business at hand: What’s the forecast for us little, truly “local” papers? Pretty good, I think, and that is backed up by many pundits who think that “local” is the only way to go. The locally owned Citizen had its most successful financial year ever last year, and we expect to do well into the foreseeable future. The demise of the Extra is nothing but good news for us, although I admit in its first few years, it was a serious competitor. The Extra was born the same month The Fayette Citizen went into business — February 1993 — and in those early days with Rick Minter as its editor, it was a serious local weekly newspaper and serious competition. It faded after he was transferred to other duties, and lately it has been little more than a Neighbor, which is to say, not much. The newspaper auditing firm CAC — Certified Audit of Circulations — completed its scrutiny of our printing and distribution numbers last fall. The numbers were very good: In our specified distribution areas, CAC reported that an amazing 99.2 percent of people received one of our papers every week. Of those households, 92 percent reported that one or two people in the household read the paper. I feel like bragging on our numbers, because these are numbers that are not made up or thrown out for effect. CAC verified the following circulation numbers: 28,469 papers actually delivered in Fayette on Wednesday; 18,449 papers actually delivered in Peachtree City and east Coweta on Friday; and 12,118 actually delivered in Tyrone and South Fulton on Saturday. Nobody else — and I mean NOBODY — has the newspaper numbers we do in Fayette, east Coweta and South Fulton counties. If anybody tells you otherwise, ask to see their audited proof. With the largest news staff in Fayette County, if you want local news, covered by veteran reporters who have been on their beats longer than 15 minutes, we’re your paper. And your website, too. The Citizen Online went live in November of 1996, among the first 10 or so newspapers in the state to have an active, changing website that early in the game. We operate what we believe is by far the most visited website of any kind published in Fayette County. For example, in January, our site logged over 8.7 million hits, with more than 2.5 million page-views, and 143,954 visits. We are about to upgrade our site again to offer yet more local features and opportunities for local participation and input. I hope you will visit TheCitizen.com and log in to have your say on whatever is on your mind, including this self-serving column about this newspaper which I helped start and continue to love. Thanks for indulging me in this little “letter to our readers.” I assure you, The Citizen also is moving forward, and we’ll wave — a friendly, competitive wave — to those AJC parachutists on those few occasions they might be dropping in for “local” coverage. login to post comments
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