An update on hunt for new AJC columnist

Dear Readers,

Thank you.

A few weeks ago we told you about the pending retirement of AJC conservative columnist Jim Wooten. This summer he’ll step down from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s editorial board and reduce the frequency of his Thinking Right column to once a week. He’ll also continue his blog on ajc.com. We believe it is critical to fill his position.

To supplement our traditional recruitment efforts and broaden the selection pool, we opened the search process to include submissions from the general public.

Journalists, of course, stepped forward. But we also heard from pilots, teachers, bloggers, professors, think tank professionals, homemakers, attorneys, retirees, college students, technology professionals, medical workers and others.

Nearly 200 people rushed in during the two-week submission period that ended Feb. 1. They were undaunted by our list of challenging criteria for the position and requests to write essays, offer ideas for columns and share why they consider themselves conservatives.

We are honored and impressed by the outpouring.

There’s no time to dally, though. We’re moving quickly to get you a new conservative columnist.

We’ve already worked through the difficult first portion of the selection process and have come up with an impressive and broad list of conservative contributors to consider further. In the days and weeks ahead we’ll be asking some of these people to write a bit more for us. We anticipate sharing with our print and online readers some of those works (without the candidates’ names attached). You’ll also have an opportunity to give us feedback on those writing samples.

That’s in keeping with the spirit of the @issue pages in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and online at ajc.com. They are a venue for readers and commentators to share, discuss and ponder issues that affect all of us.

Thank you for being a part of the AJC, and thank you especially for contributing to our future together.

Matt Kempner

AJC Public Editor