Report: Atlanta Journal-Constitution to End Weekday Print

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will discontinue its daily print edition and go to a weekend print edition, but it will continue its digital news operation seven days a week, according to The Saporta Report citing  interviews with a half dozen people close to the newspaper.

The time frame to implement the discontinuation of the daily print edition has not yet been decided, but sources say it likely would happen sometime in 2023 — most likely within a year from now.

Senior editors were told of the decision during a zoom meeting on Sept. 1. The meeting was led by Kevin Riley, editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Shawn McIntosh, the newspaper’s managing editor.

During the meeting, the editors were told there were no immediate plans to lay off newsroom employees, according to people familiar with the meeting.  All newsroom employees also have been sent an email inviting them to an “in-person” staff meeting on Sept. 8 at 11 a.m.

In a brief telephone interview on Sept. 1, Riley did not confirm the decision. When asked if the AJC had decided to discontinue the print edition six days a week and only have a Sunday print edition within the next year, Riley answered: “No such decision has been made.”

Newsroom employees have been witnessing the shift to a “digital-first policy.” The AJC sold its printing press and contracted with another newspaper company to print its paper, but that meant daily deadlines were pushed from 4 to 6 p.m., which meant the morning newspaper did not include any breaking news from the night before, including sports scores. Readers began to rely on the digital news product to get the latest news.

In an AJC story in 2009, the newspaper announced a steep drop in its daily and Sunday circulation because of a decision to reduce its distribution area from 74 counties to 20 counties. At the time, the Sunday circulation was 405,549, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. And daily circulation had dropped to 214,303. Those numbers meant that the AJC “fell out of the top 25 newspapers for daily circulation.”