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Monday, January 19, 2009
Be a conservative columnist
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s your chance. Be a columnist at the AJC. If you’re a conservative, that is.
Some of yesterday’s contributors expressed concern that when I leave the editorial board June 30, the replacement won’t be a conservative. The chances of that are nil.
These are tough times in the newspaper business, as most everybody knows. Staff reductions have occurred here and are occurring in news organizations across the country. Even so, the commitment from the top at the AJC is to diversity of editorial opinion and that includes staff-written conservative commentary. I’ll be involved in interviewing and choosing my successor, along with the newspaper’s publisher, Doug Franklin, its editor, Julia Wallace, the editorial page editor, Cynthia Tucker, and the public editor, Matt Kempner. The public editor is, in a sense, the reader’s representative. He talks daily with readers who think stories or headlines are unfair, inaccurate or misleading, along with those who call to offer praise for something we’ve done.
One of the concerns some readers have expressed is that people who aren’t themselves conservative will be choosing the paper’s conservative voice. If you allowed me to pick the liberal columnists, I’d likely pick the liberal who appeals to conservatives or possibly even the liberal who makes liberals look ridiculous, God rest Molly Ivins’ soul.
That’s a concern I once shared. But no longer. It will be fair. It’s open to non-journalists who can write and meet deadlines. At some point in the process, you’ll be allowed to read and react to the opinions of potential replacements.
To start, I would like to solicit some opinion from contributors here. Is a college degree essential?
Here’s more on the New Columnist selection process.
