Atlanta Journal Constitution rethinks everything
A lot mega-dailies have been shedding staff in recent years — The New York Times, Dallas Morning News, the AJC and many more. But it at least sounds like the AJC is doing more than just cutting staff.

They are rethinking their whole approach to news. I don’t have a problem with cutting staff if less and less people are buying the product. No one would think twice is Apple laid off employees if the iPod stopped selling. But Apple would also try to think of the next big product to sell.

Newspapers just cut staff without thinking of anything new or big. Certainly, you can eek out another profitable quarter by cutting costs, but eventually if you cost too many costs, you don’t have a product. The AJC decided to try to position their new product as Web first, print second.

That’s exactly how newspapers will succeed in the future. There will always be people who want to read newspapers. They are older, “settled” adults. They have established careers, make good money and are educated.

They, however, aren’t the only people who want news. A lot of younger people (like, say, me or my friends or my generation) aren’t settled and certainly aren’t thinking of subscribing to a newspaper. That doesn’t mean we don’t like to be informed.

It just means we need a medium that fits our lives and our schedules. The Web is it. I can get up-to-the-minute coverage of what I want to know on the Web, at any time.

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