NPR is Doing a Story About the AJC. Will it Include Its Role in Atlanta’s Public Radio War?
In an interview with the British podcast Media Confidential about the Washington Post’s new publisher Will Lewis, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik brought up Atlanta.
“I mean one of the real questions is, does he [Will Lewis] view himself as a [Jeff] Zucker-like figure where Zucker was the chief executive, president I think he had the title of, but he also basically helped run the news meetings, right? And that’s a very broadcast forward way of doing it. I’ve done some reporting of one of his deputies who actually had a career independent of Zucker for many years prior to being the number two at CNN. He’s now running the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and he sits in on a lot of those editorial meetings. True, that’s not typically the way American publishers operate. There’s usually, as Alan said, a church and state kind of thing going on.”
That former CNN number two is AJC publisher Andrew Morse, who began his tenure in Jan. 2023 with an ambitious plan to grow the paper into sustainability backed by a $100 million investment from its owner Cox Enterprises.
Now would certainly be an apt time for a status update and whether Morse’s blurring of church and state is controversial within the paper. But if NPR is going to report on the AJC it will be a test of its own willingness to dig into the outlet’s ethically questionable relationships with Atlanta’s NPR affiliates.
And of the good and bad of Cox’s generations-long dominance over Atlanta media.
I sought clarification from NPR via their media contact page and from the AJC. Neither responded. A direct message to Folkenflik was returned with the statement that “I’m swamped with deadlines but will take a look.” In addition to reporting on the Post scandals and newsroom revolt, Folkenflik is guest anchoring WBUR’s Here and Now, as one of several fill-ins that includes former Georgia Public Broadcasting host Celeste Headlee.
To his credit, Folkenflik followed up, specifically about my question as to whether he and Morse, who both went to Cornel and served as editors of the student paper, were active in alumni circles:
“Thanks for your patience. It’s been a busy time. I was indeed down in Atlanta reporting recently. Andrew Morse and I went to the same college but attended at different times and did not overlap. If memory serves, we first met on a story I did in the summer of 2009. I have informally given advice to the students at my college daily and those advising it. It’s my understanding Andrew has a more formal role. As for my coverage, my story should be out in the next few weeks. I encourage you to give it a listen. Thanks.”
AJC Public Radio
The AJC entered into an unspoken but extensive partnership with state-run Georgia Public Broadcasting ten years ago predating Morse’s time at the paper. But its current relationship with WABE, a daily AJC branded show on the public radio station’s airwaves, is an initiative of Morse and WABE CEO Jennifer Dorian, the daughter of David Easterly, one of Morse’s predecessors as AJC publisher.
In essence, both of Georgia’s public broadcasters have made their mission to promote the AJC, a for-profit, if not currently profitable, commercial newspaper owned by a sprawling conglomerate with extensive business interests in the state.
This has left Atlanta without a well-resourced, non-commercial alternative to Cox-owned outlets.
A New York Times for the South
Morse’s plans, outlined in interviews with the Wall Street Journal and Nieman Lab, called for new hires including reporters based in cities outside Atlanta, documentaries and video offerings, and a focus on key areas like Politics, Black Culture, and The South.
He sees the AJC as becoming the premiere digital brand for the South, with content appealing to non-news consumers such as food, travel, sports, and lifestyle. For traditional news junkies it would continue to emphasize political content, premised on Georgia being a swing state filled with constant drama. “Georgia is the center of the political universe.”
A revamped opinion section would “challenge” people’s thinking in a regional equivalent to the love/hate relationships digital subscribers have with the NYTs or Washington Post’s Op Ed sections.
Neither profile brought up conflicts of interest over Cox’s ownership or local criticism of the paper be it from the left or right, or apolitical.
In another publicity blitz of sorts, Cox splurged for the AJC’s political reporters and editor to attend the White House Correspondents Dinner, rubbing elbows with the likes of Politico, Semafor, and the Cox-owned Axios.
With most other legacy newsrooms shrinking, this hiring and marketing blitz would seem like a bright spot for media watchers, a redoubling of the benevolent billionaire model credited with reinvigorating the Washington Post after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought it in 2013 and the purchase by local billionaires of the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times.
But both the LA Times and Post have seen layoffs and financial losses amid news fatigue. And Cox ownership in Atlanta is not new. The Dynasty has owned the AJC, plus WSB TV and Radio, in whole or in part, since 1939.
The Post’s hiring of Lewis was an effort to find its own path to sustainability with Bezos insisting the paper can’t just be a money-losing act of charity on his part.
During the Trump presidency the Post was a success gaining a national audience and marketing itself with the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
Now publishers themselves seem fatigued with that idea and leaders at major outlets like the Times are signaling an effort to broaden their audience and treat both parties with equal scrutiny even if their Trump-era subscribers still see one as flawed but the other as a threat to Democracy.
How’s Morse’s Plan Working?
The most recent subscription numbers I have access to are from last fall when the paper published its annual Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation.
(NPR may have more recent numbers if the AJC provided them.)
This was less than a year into Morse’s push for subscribers and may be a bad metric, but they show a decline in average paid digital subscriptions from the year before with a slight increase in digital editions of the single issue nearest to the form’s filing date.
2022 vs. 2023 was a more active year in Georgia news with the Herschal Walker vs. Raphael Warnock Senate race, the Kemp vs. Abrams gubernatorial contest and elections for other statewide offices.
Paid print subscriptions continued their decline.
In Sept. of 2022, ahead of Morse’s arrival as publisher, there was a story in Saporta Report that the AJC might end print except for Sunday within a year.
The risk of losing print revenue before gaining enough digital subscribers appears to have altered that calculation. In Morse’s New Year’s 2024 column he stated print will continue for the foreseeable future. And that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution would be moving back into Atlanta proper after over a decade in the suburbs.
Currently, the paper is offering a “Summer Sale” of full digital access for 12 weeks at a heavily discounted 99 cents.
That isn’t unusual. The Washington Post is also offering discounted subscriptions and a recent Reuters Institute report suggests few digital subscribers pay full price. Many cancel after trial offers end.
Remarkably few digital news subscribers pay full price — Poynter
That makes Morse’s goal of 500,000 AJC subscribers by 2026 look difficult. Outlets that have succeeded digitally include the Times, which is a national newspaper often seen as America’s front page, and the Wall St. Journal and Bloomberg which cater to business readers.
Cox City Consensus Amidst Populist Anger
Longtime opinion page editor Andre Jackson retired earlier this year with Morse hiring Washington Post alum Jamie Riley to revamp the section. Morse added several politicians as paid contributors including former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and former Congressmember Carolyn Bourdeax. While that’s a bipartisan roster, both are centrist, by Georgia standards, and Cox friendly.
A longstanding concern of mine is that Georgia politicians in both parties are so dependent on Cox outlets for earned media that they cater to Cox business and philanthropic interests without holding it accountable for corporate shenanigans.
Gov. Brian Kemp, who relies on the AJC to further his national profile, has made electric vehicles a centerpiece of his economic development initiatives. That directly benefits Cox Automotive.
Cox CEO Alex Taylor was lead corporate fundraiser for the controversial “Cop City” Public Safety Training Center which the James M. Cox Foundation donated to. The AJC, and Andrew Morse himself, have provided public relations support for Mayor Andre Dickens over his support for the project.
The paper’s editorial board, which includes Morse and the paper’s editor-in-chief Leroy Chapman, Jr. continue to cheerlead for the “Atlanta Way,” a kind of enlightened Neo-Liberalism where Black elected officials and mostly white business leaders make decisions in private then sell them to the public in the interest of prosperity.
The “Atlanta Way” is credited with helping Atlanta integrate relatively peacefully and thrive after the Civil Rights Era. But it’s faces increased criticism as an excuse to avoid public input on decisions, like “Cop City” or the future of public radio in Atlanta, and for fostering income inequality and an out-of-touch elite.
Amid growing populist distrust, doubling done on the “Atlanta Way” seems like the AJC supports a “we know what’s best” status quo.
How NPR Covers Atlanta Media
In reviewing some of NPR’s media coverage, Andrew Morse got more stories at various stages in his career than Cox Enterprises has as a media owner.
In 2010, Folkenflik surveyed Atlanta through the frame of loss of trust in the media. At the time, the AJC was leaving the city for the suburbs and making a conscious effort to cater to more conservative readers.
Something Atlanta’s then alt-weekly (now just an online music calendar) Creative Loafing dug into later that year.
Folkenflik’s story quotes people who think the AJC is too liberal, but whom the AJC was courting, as well as a left-wing outlet called Atlanta Progressive News that saw Atlanta media as too corporate and business friendly.
Any follow-up now that the AJC is moving back in town will likely show distrust is even more pronounced. The right still bashes the “liberal media,” including every day on Cox Media’s WSB radio.
The AJC has shrunk since 2010 but several non-profits have sprung up including Canopy Atlanta, Capital B, and Atlanta Civic Circle. Georgia Recorder is a States Newsroom outlet.
While these new sources are welcome, most partner with the AJC to gain a wider audience for their stories. To my knowledge, none have done stories investigating Cox business interests or charities or criticized conflicts of interest in Cox media outlets’ reporting.
Atlanta Progressive News is no longer publishing, but other avowedly leftist outlets like Atlanta Community Press Collective and Mainlinezine have emerged.
In its own media story of sorts, these leftist Atlanta outlets have received funding from dissident Cox family heir Fergie Chambers who likes to criticize Cox as much as Cox likes to avoid any mention of him.
(As I’ve disclosed before, Chambers provided the bulk of $600 in crowdfunding to cover the costs of one of my own Open Records Requests. Ideally, no funding for media critical of Cox would come from a Cox heir who is himself controversial and frequently newsworthy, but in the absence of independent media reporting and Cox’s funding of most of Atlanta’s major non-profits, colleges, and journalism organizations, options are limited.
The documents are available here and cover the AJC’s interactions with GPB in 2023. They show almost daily communications and appearances on GPB’s airwaves by AJC reporters and editors even as the state legislature was cutting GPB’s budget. ORRs related to the cancelation of Political Rewind, and the AJC then hiring its host directly and WABE giving them a similar show on its own airwaves are also available.)
In 2020 NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, an AJC alum, interviewed its retiring political columnist Jim Galloway giving him a grand sendoff. That he had once compared GPB to state media in a banana republic only to become a regular on its airwaves went unmentioned.
Kelly famously grilled NPR’s own CEO live on air over a scandal in 2017. It was hailed as necessary accountability for the organization’s leaders and proof NPR would hold itself as accountable as any other organization.
Put Your Own Arrest on the Front Page
In his story disclosing that Will Lewis had offered a quid pro quo, an exclusive about the future of the Washington Post in exchange for spiking critical coverage of Lewis’s time in Rupert Murdoch’s employ, Folkenflik included an anecdote about former Post managing editor Eugene Patterson. When later the editor of the St. Petersburg Tines, Patterson insisted on placing his own arrest for DUI on the front page. It was a statement that a newsroom wouldn’t bury its own mistakes but blast them as much as it would any public official’s lapses.
That rarely happens in Atlanta or throughout Cox outlets. The AJC has yet to cover Fergie Chambers’ split from the family trust and actions over the Israeli-Gaza conflict. It has done no original reporting on former AJC columnist Wes Moss’s involvement in, and subsequent falling out with, Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social. (The paper never even disclosed why it dropped Moss as a columnist.) And its coverage of public radio in Atlanta has been woefully selective and self-serving.
Before he joined the Washington Post, Patterson served as an editor at the Atlanta Constitution. He resigned in 1968 after a dispute with then publisher Jack Tarver.
From a 1968 Time Magazine article:
Patterson’s frustrations came to a head two weeks ago, over an article by a bright young girl columnist named B.J. (for Billie Jo) Phillips. Three weeks ago, her editorial page column tackled the Georgia Power Co., which is seeking a rate increase to offset the 10% federal income tax surcharge. There is no evidence that Georgia Power complained, but its influence is so pervasive in Atlanta that it does not have to. The night the column appeared, B.J. learned that Tarver felt her column should be limited to “topics she is qualified to write about.” Next morning B.J.’s resignation was on Patterson’s desk. Patterson, upset, demanded that the resignation be rejected and that he maintain control of his editorial page. When Tarver refused, Patterson himself resigned, and was hired as managing editor of the Washington Post, replacing Benjamin Bradlee, who became the Post’s top editor….
Not only does the AJC not put its own scandals on the front page, they kept the details of why Patterson quit out of its obituary of him.
The AJC and media in Cox City are certainly ripe for an overview. But will it be an access-driven “the future of the AJC” story of the kind Will Lewis offered in exchange for not pursuing his ethical lapses? Or will it be as independent and self-critical as the Post and NPR’s coverage of themselves gets praise for?
Having spent years patiently trying to get anyone at NPR to even acknowledge let alone hold accountable the AJC’s leaders for their self-serving relationships with our public broadcasters, I’m intrigued but skeptical.
We’ll wait and see.
