By Elliott Brack
Editor and publisher, GwinnettForum
AUG. 29, 2025 | We got the word that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), one of my former employers, would stop printing the newspaper. The news came via a phone call from former Gwinnettian Philip Reed, who now lives in Hickory, N.C. His daughter texted him. I remember hearing a “blip” on the computer, which I presume was about the breaking news of the change, but had not paid attention to it.
Once I returned home after the military and graduate school, and when in South Georgia, I became a subscriber for the AJC. That’s 63 years of having breakfast with this newspaper friend. This will certainly change my day.
The best way I can figure to read the news now at breakfast is that I’ll read the AJC on a tablet. I know I won’t like it, but I’ll get used to it.
My hope is that the AJC will put the money it costs to print and distribute information into solid upgrades. That would include more depth in news coverage (How about a reporter in Gwinnett?), cutting back on long, gray stories (which cost less to fill a page), and fewer stories from somewhere far away or in Savannah, plus a hard-hitting editorial page. We can’t fathom going without Luckovich!
So far, I have not been a fan of the AJC website. I hope it will improve and make a fan out of me.
It is sad, but it was inevitable. The web has cut into its previous money pots, such as multiple sections of department store advertising; new and used car advertising; grocery inserts instead of ads in the paper, and the real estate market. The success of non-newspaper advertisers like Walmart and Costco did not help any.
So we’ll have to switch, though we won’t like it. Perhaps it can bring new life to local newspapers, like Gwinnett Daily Post, Marietta Daily Journal and the Times in Gainesville. We would wish that.
Thank you, AJC, for the last 63 years of good work.
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