Local news is in crisis. This paper has a $150 million plan
Dashed hopes and slashed jobs define the local news industry in far too many corners of the country.
In Atlanta, Andrew Morse, the president and publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has splashy plans to revive the ailing newspaper. And he's been given a $150 million runway over the next several years to figure it out.
"I did not come here to manage decline," says Morse, a former CNN executive who joined the newspaper in January 2023. "We understand that the ad marketplace has been hollowed out by Google and Facebook. We know that news deserts have emerged throughout much of the country.
"Instead of reading story after story about the futility of this," Morse asks, "why don't we grasp onto notions of, 'How do we build for the future?'"
From a journalistic standpoint — heck, from an actuarial standpoint — the local newspaper industry is in dire straits.
The companies are largely concentrated in the hands of a few corporate titans, many controlled by investment funds. Owners often seek to prop up immediate profits while shrinking their newspapers' staff in what's considered by critics to be a money-making death spiral.
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/17/nx-s1-5191672/ajc-atlanta-georgia-newspaper-strategy-andrew-morse
This is hopeful, and I'll be watching it closely as I consider my next subscription.