For the third time in less than two years, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reducing its delivery area, cutting off 22 largely rural counties as of Jan. 11. Circulation of the newspaper, once statewide, will be limited to 27 counties in and close to the Atlanta metropolitan area. But even some relatively close counties will get the ax.
Most of the counties being cut from the paper's circulation area are in Appalachia: Banks, Dawson, Fannin, Gilmer, Greene, Habersham, Jackson, Lumpkin, Pickens, Rabun, Towns, Union, and White counties in northeast Georgia, and Cherokee, Clay and Macon counties in North Carolina. Those three counties, the only Tar Heel State counties that border Georgia, were the last out-of-state counties in the AJC's circulation area.
Also cut from the area were Butts and Spalding counties, only 30 miles south of the Atlanta airport on Interstate 75; Morgan, 35 miles east of the city's I-285 bypass; and Haralson, Heard, and Troup counties, similar distances westward on the Alabama border. Carroll County, which lies on between Haralson and Heard, remains in the circulation area.
The AJC and Cox Newspapers offered no specific reasons for the cuts, but cited “unprecedented economic challenges” in the media industry and said “Metro newspapers around the country are grappling with revenue declines that have worsened amid the economic downturn this fall. Expanded online operations have so far not generated enough revenue to offset the drops.” Several other papers have reduced their circulation areas, often saying far-flung delivery was unprofitable. That's what the AJC said about at least one previous cut.
The paper's brief items said nothing about impact on its rural news coverage, but the pattern among metro dailies has been that when an area loses circulation, it gets less coverage. We were asked yesterday who's supposed to pick up the slack in such cases. Our answer: The smaller newspapers and broadcast stations, and the chains that own many of them.
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