News - Net gain?

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has taken a giant leap into the present. High-profile changes this past Sunday and planned for next week reflect a concerted effort for the paper to be viable in all things interactive and Internet. The main change so far has been the conversion of Sunday's "Perspective" opinion section into an opinion-oriented mishmash titled "@issue." Sunday's "Arts" section also unveiled two columns of blurbs, titled "e arts", which offer websites pertinent to arts and entertainment. Next week, every section of the paper is scheduled to add similar "e" features: "e sports", "e business" and so on.

AJC Managing Editor John Walter says the changes further the paper's effort to cover a new culture, just as newspapers covered radio and TV upon their invention. In the face of the Net, Walter admits, newspapers can seem "out of it" — a "clunky" and "old-culture" medium. No argument here. Every newspaper executive in America is feeling threatened by the Internet and is struggling to do something more than offer an online edition.

The problem from a journalistic standpoint is that the AJC, through its existing features, columns and news stories is already covering the Internet as a newspaper should. The new stuff is an attempt to capture the dynamic of the Net with simplistic interactive offerings or by steering people toward sites that are — at least, in the case of "e arts" — nothing more than advertisements for movies. It's really gimmickry posing as brave new world.

The print version of "@issue" contains new features. In addition to the usual mix of letters, an editorial and columns, there are book reviews (taken from the "Arts" section), blurbs recounting the week's top stories, a science page and two columns of Web blurbs. There also are blurbier blurbs like "By the numbers" (Example; "49 years: Life expectancy of a child born in 1900") and "Quotes of the Week," both being the kind of silly tidbits found in Time and Newsweek.

But readers lose something amid the changes. The debut "@issue" splashes just one long think piece (on women and the presidency). The old Perspective section normally offered, well, perspective on two or three topics. I must say the section looked good, but I couldn't help feeling a dumbing down was one end result.

The idea of covering a new culture aside, is the effort really to be hipper? Retain readers? Capture new or younger readers? Of course. The Net threatens old media with a bleak business future. Is it a sign of desperation? Well, the numbers don't really bear that out. Total circulation for the morning Constitution, for example, has held in the 300,000 realm since 1998. Sunday circulation is down some 16,000 from last year but still in the 600,000 range. Then again, those numbers aren't exactly what one would hope for in the fastest-growing metro area east of the Mississippi.

Diss-closure

Sunday's AJC also offered examples an enduring responsibility to which the daily often falls short — corporate disclosure. The AJC is owned by Cox Enterprises, which also owns WSB-TV, WSB-AM and FM radio, and two other radio stations in Atlanta. Too often, the paper writes about its corporate partners without mentioning the shared ownership.

On Sunday, that happened at least three times: A short piece on broadcast ratings rightly headlined that WSB-AM was again the top station, but failed to disclose Cox as the parent company. A related piece on radio websites included site addresses for a host of stations, including four Cox-owned stations found online via "Access Atlanta," the city site that itself is operated by Cox Interactive and can be linked via ajc.com. And then there was a long, love-letter feature on Bill Nigut, WSB-TV's political reporter.

That was too much Cox in one paper for me.

Job opening

The topic of corporate disclosure would seem to fall within the purview of AJC Public Editor George Edmonson. His job is to shepherd corrections, and to write a Saturday column explaining the workings of the daily and responding to reader complaints or questions.

But Edmonson hasn't exactly been a harsh watchdog. One example: His Aug. 5 column, which lauded the AJC for giving readers so much for just 50 cents. He didn't mention that the paper was on that very day giving readers a bit less. Unlike with the changes plugged on the front page in Sunday's paper, the AJC quietly scrapped its "Conversation Starter" editorial, which had appeared directly across from Edmonson's column.

Though they may sometimes help readers, his largely vapid pieces are a hoot to local media wags, enough so to make you wonder just what he was being allowed to do. Now, though, comes a chance for the paper to hire a truly independent ombudsman and back off the cheesiness. Edmonson is leaving by year's end to become a reporter in the newspaper's Washington bureau.

Bringing in someone from outside the paper could add credibility, maybe someone like formerly-run-out-of-town AJC Editor Bill Kovach, who was performing the ombudsman's role at Brill's Content up until his two-year deal ended this spring. No, I'm not hinting that he's coming back, but we can dream, right?

Greg Fulton can be reached at gfulton@mindspring.com