Atlanta Journal-Constitution to stop printing as it transitions to all-digital news
Atlanta – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will stop providing an printed edition at the end of the year and will become completely digital, marking a dramatic change for a light newspaper which was founded only a few years after the end of the civil war.
The decision will make Atlanta the largest American metropolitan region without a printed daily newspaper, although some small newspapers in the Atlanta metro continue to print.
Publisher Andrew Morse made this announcement on Thursday, saying that press organization will continue to report news using online, audio and video products.
“The fact is that many more people engage with our platforms and digital products today than with our printed edition, and this change is only accelerating,” wrote Morse in a letter to subscribers published on the website of the newspaper-constitution. The AJC has about 115,000 subscribers in total, including 75,000 online only; Morse set the goal of obtaining 500,000 subscribers online.
The newspaper belongs to descendants of the Cox family. The former governor of Ohio, James Cox, bought the Atlanta Journal in 1939 and the Constitution of Atlanta in 1950. The Constitution of Atlanta was founded in 1868 only a few years after the Civil War left Atlanta in ruins and was the platform of famous publishers, including New South Booster Henry Grady and the anti-Segregationist Ralph McGill.
Morse said that the newspaper-constitution will offer a new mobile application by the end of the year and will provide an electronic edition for subscribers who prefer the paper edition experience.
Many short newspapers have ceased to print, while others have reduced their publication days. For example, the Tampa Bay Times, which serves Tampa and Saint Petersburg, Florida, only prints two days a week. But it has been unusual so far for major metropolitan newspapers to completely abandon the impression. The highest profile example is Newark Star-Ledger, New Jersey. Once the best -selling newspaper in New Jersey is, he stopped printing in February. The Newhouse family, owner of the Star-Ledger, has also stopped printing other important newspapers in New Jersey and Alabama.
The COX family has invested in the press organization from Morse, a former CNN executive, became a publisher in 2023. The newspaper-constitution hired journalists in the cities of Georgia in Athens, Macon and Savannah, has expanded an offer focused on black culture and has pushed new audio and video offers. The company also moved into a new office in the Atlanta Midtown district, returning inside the city’s limits from an office in the northern suburbs.
The business leaders said that the printed edition was still profitable. The newspaper-constitution closed its own printing factories and outsourced the impression to another newspaper in Gainesville, in Georgia, in 2021. When Morse came on board, he paused to reduce the printed edition, but said that the time had come.
“We are going to start the new year as an entirely digital organization, as always committed, to be the most essential and engaging source of information for the inhabitants of Atlanta, Georgia and the South,” wrote Morse.
