‘The only thing that changes is how we deliver it’
For generations, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has marked the rhythms of this city with ink, paper and the familiar thump of the morning delivery.
On Dec. 31, that ritual comes to an end. The newspaper that chronicled the civil rights movement, tracked every high and low of Atlanta sports, and introduced countless readers to the wider world, will publish its final print edition as the AJC shifts fully into its digital future.
To close this chapter, we turned to the people who are still shaping it — the reporters, editors and photographers who craft front pages, chase scoops, tell hard truths and carve out the moments that define careers.
They were asked to reflect on their “big break,” the story or turning point that made them feel they belonged in this newsroom and this profession.
What follows is a portrait of a staff bound by adrenaline, curiosity, humor and the shared belief that journalism matters.
Carrie Teegardin
1989, Investigative Reporter
My big break at the AJC that set my reporting career on new path came in 1993.
I’d moved slightly beyond the cub reporter phase by then, having spent a few years cranking out local government stories and then covering the demographics beat. After proving I could both write and work with data, one of our legendary editors, Hyde Post, asked me to work on a data-driven investigation of hospital pricing.
I worked with an incredible team — data editor Hal Straus, and editor Richard Halicks — as we told the stories revealed by an analysis of 500,000 hospital bills. The special report attracted tons of readers who blew up my landline phone in the downtown Atlanta newsroom for weeks, telling me about their personal experience with hospital bills.
I would never want to do anything other than investigative stories after seeing what a difference we could make by uncovering things that would otherwise remain hidden. I can’t even count how many investigative projects I’ve worked on since that series was published. We examined Georgia’s nursing homes and published our own searchable ratings system when the internet was new. We exposed a deeply flawed refugee resettlement program run by the Catholic Church in Atlanta. We revealed a questionable approach to deciding which kids get to be in gifted programs. We exposed how Georgia is the worst place in America to borrow a little bit of money.
I worked on an amazing team that revealed how doctors who sexually abused patients stayed in practice across the country. We exposed the dark side of fancy assisted living facilities, the disturbing shortcomings of psychiatric care for kids in Georgia, and then, for the last couple of years, I worked on an investigation of a deeply dysfunctional and dangerous Georgia state prison system.
With one series after another, we always worked to make Georgia a better place by telling our readers — and our state’s leaders — about problems that needed their attention. Usually, we get results and that’s what makes all the time and effort of this work worth it.
All these years later, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.
Eric Stirgus
November 2001; Education Editor
I was in the newsroom one afternoon during the fall of 2009 when AJC Managing Editor Bert Roughton Jr. asked if anyone had told me I’d been doing a good job covering the Atlanta mayor’s race.
There was national attention in the campaign and the runoff between Mary Norwood and Kasim Reed. If elected, Norwood would have become Atlanta’s first white mayor in decades. Reed was backed by the city’s Black political establishment. I chased scoops and feared getting scooped. I also wanted to make sure my coverage was fair. The race was intense. I recall taking a call from Norwood one evening and asking her to hold. Reed was on the other line.
I had been at the AJC for about eight years and still questioned whether I belonged here. There were so many great journalists here. I hadn’t worked in the main office, then at 72 Marietta St. Before covering City Hall, I worked in the county bureaus, which some reporters called the newsroom’s minor leagues.
To have Bert, who didn’t hold back on stories he didn’t like, say I was doing a good job made me feel like I belonged.
Reed won the runoff by less than 1 percentage point. I felt like my coverage did the newsroom proud. And I was ready for a vacation.
Kelly Yamanouchi
2008, Deputy Business Editor
My first front page story at the AJC portended the transformation of the newspaper it was printed in.
I joined the AJC in mid-2008, starry-eyed at the possibilities of a beat covering the world’s largest airline in a city with the world’s busiest airport.
My first front page story landed on June 17 of that year with the headline: “Boarding pass? How passe.”
It explained the mechanics of how Delta Air Lines would that day launch an “electronic boarding pass option” for passengers on domestic flights out of New York’s LaGuardia Airport, with plans to bring it to Atlanta later that year.
Smartphones were not yet as widespread as they are today, and neither were airline mobile apps.
My article explained that the Delta electronic boarding pass would “allow passengers to use web-enabled mobile phones and devices to check in online at mobile.delta.com.”
I quoted the then-managing director of delta.com, Josh Weiss, saying: “The paperless process appeals very much to business travelers.”
Just as boarding passes transformed flight check-ins more than 17 years ago, the AJC is also moving to a “paperless” future — one that we hope will appeal very much to our subscribers.
Miguel Martinez
2015, Photographer
One of Donald Trump’s campaign promises was to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, which would lead to the largest number of deportations in history.
A week after his inauguration, immigration raids started in the Atlanta metropolitan area. On Sunday, Jan. 27, we received reports of agents in Gwinnett County, where we visited multiple locations and documented several people being detained, including Kenia Velazquez’s husband.
Wilson Velazquez was arrested outside the Fountain of Life Church in Tucker, where we watched the mother of three collapse in despair after receiving a phone call from him from an immigration jail.
There are no exact figures on how many people have been deported so far this year. Still, the number could be in the hundreds.
We have been able to document multiple arrests and how the agencies involved have developed controversial tactics to arrest people, including the well-known Spanish-language news reporter Mario Guevara, who, despite having a work permit, was sent back to his home country of El Salvador.
Kristi E. Swartz
1998 intern; 2008, Climate Reporter
I asked to intern with the business desk in the summer of ‘98. I had just graduated from college and thought those clips vs cops and courts would make me more marketable in getting a real job.
Little did I know I’d be covering the General Motors strike all summer, driving up to Doraville in the morning and afternoon at shift change to talk to workers.
Late one afternoon my editor, the late great Karl Ritzler, called me over to his desk and said he was cutting parts of my story so it would fit on A1. Those were the days of the “no-jump” rule, so front-page stories were short and sweet.
In fact, between a graf from the AP, the stock information and a large, centerpiece photo, my actual copy wasn’t much at all, aside from color and quotes from workers who were mentally preparing to strike. Karl and I got a good laugh out of that.
I didn’t care. I had a front-page story in the AJC.
I saved dozens of papers the next day. My parents framed one and gave it to me for Christmas that year. It still hangs on the wall of my home office, 27 years later.
Gavin Godfrey
2023, UATL
I can remember the excitement that came with every morning. Mom would wake me up for school. I’d rush downstairs, Pop was sitting on the couch, reading the AJC, obliterating the crossword puzzles.
Next to him, waiting for me, was the sports section. I studied stats, checked on where the Braves were in the standings, sparred with the old man about hot takes from Terrance Moore.
I imagined myself one day being a professional journalist, writing for the hometown paper.
Pop left us on Nov. 3, 2024. I joined the AJC a year before that. The greatest joy I had was seeing him and Mom share my bylines with family and friends.
They understood the magnitude of their youngest son’s name on the front page of their favorite paper.
Whether it was speaking to the widow of a soldier killed in a drone strike, reporting on Atlanta’s first graffiti crew or launching the Black Mecca series, they were proud.
That print paper was the family’s conversation starter. I was the weird son who used to read the obituaries, so I guess it’s fitting I wrote our family’s goodbye to Pop.
The week before he passed, the OG was still laying waste to the crosswords.
For me, Mom and Pop, the AJC connected us to our city, history and each other. It’s always been bigger than ledes, headlines and documentation of disappointing Atlanta sports outcomes.
For an Atlanta kid, this paper is family.
Ken Sugiura
1998, Sports Columnist
The first story I remember breaking for the AJC was different from the rest of them in that it completely fell in my lap. In July 2000, I was the No. 2 Falcons reporter behind Matt Winkeljohn. It was my introduction to covering a professional sports team.
At the end of my first training-camp practice without Matt — then held at Furman University — the late Dan Reeves gave a newbie a break. Without any other news media present, the then-Falcons coach told me that one of the cornerbacks, Michael Booker, was not at practice and was unaccounted for. Handing a young reporter a scoop was a supremely generous act on Reeves’ part, fitting in with who he was as a person and something I’ll always remember him for.
But that was only part of the story. I filed my story and went back to my hotel, but not before stopping at the neighboring Waffle House for a late meal.
Who should I find among the diners?
None other than Michael Booker.
I quickly returned to my hotel room and updated my story. I remember my satisfaction with The Associated Press following the story and attributing it to the AJC.
I’ve been able to break a few more stories in the quarter century since. Unfortunately, none have been so easy.
Nancy Clanton
2000, Quality Control
When the AJC prints its last newspaper on Dec. 31, I will have worked here 25 years. In that quarter of a century, I truly think I have done nearly every job possible.
Although I have my fair share of bylines, most of my time has been spent behind the scenes. You never knew I was the one who designed the Living & Arts pages, along with Sports, Metro and A1. Do you remember Buyer’s Edge? That was me. I also was a copy editor for every section of the paper at some point in my career here.
I transitioned to digital — we called it “the dark side” back then — about a decade ago, but always missed my time on the print side. There is such a rush of adrenaline when you’re trying to make a 25-inch story fit into a 20-inch space on a page with only three minutes until deadline, or brainstorming with the team to get just the right headline.
I’ll also never forget the days we were snowed in with only a few people, but we still put out a paper for our subscribers. And somewhere I have a photo of us with our laptops in the stairwell so we could keep working during a tornado warning.
And you’ve not lived until you’ve walked under the conveyor carrying the finished newspaper through the pressroom.
I’ve said for many years that journalism has been around since the first person stood on a crate in the town center and shouted the news to whomever would listen, and it will be around for centuries to come. The only thing that changes is how we deliver it to you.
Nedra Rhone
2006, Columnist
I grew up in Chicago and my parents subscribed to four newspapers. We even got the print newspaper from my mom’s hometown in Louisiana. I was a voracious reader and after I read my books and magazines, I would reach for the newspaper. Eventually, it became a habit, especially on Sundays. I started off reading the comics and the lifestyle sections but graduated to news and opinion writing by Chicago columnists like Mike Royko and Mary Schmich.
I loved newspapers. I loved writing. But it didn’t occur to me to make news reporting a career until an encounter with two esteemed Black female journalists convinced me otherwise. I arrived at the AJC in 2006, ready to be part of a newspaper that had a long history and tradition in the city. I loved seeing people read the AJC and I felt proud when my stories landed on A1 because I knew how hard I worked to get them there.
I don’t know how I will feel about not seeing the printed paper, but I know I still love being a reporter. Even though I have to say goodbye to reading the AJC in print, my love for a well-written story remains.
Rodney Ho
1994, Entertainment Reporter
A month before I arrived at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in April 1994 as a bushy, bright eyed 24-year-old business reporter, my future desk neighbor and AJC tech reporter Bill “Technobuddy” Husted wrote a story about the AJC becoming the first newspaper to create an electronic version of itself on Prodigy, then the biggest on-line computer network service. It was dubbed “Access Atlanta,” a side project stuck in a tiny room, a curiosity largely ignored by the newspaper staff.
Within two years, we joined the World Wide Web with ajc.com. (Prodigy, a walled-off entity like American Online, would be dead by 2001.) Covering banking in early January, 1995, I recall using our only computer with dial-up service to view the brand new website for a bank dubbed First Union. It took forever to load and was basically an online pamphlet. My lede: “First Union gingerly stepped onto the internet with an information package it hopes will pave the way for on-line banking.” (First Union, too, would disappear in 2001 after merging with Wachovia.)
As the internet grew in influence, print began its slow, inexorable slide to eventual obsolescence. I left for The Wall Street Journal in 1996 but returned to the AJC in 2001 to cover entertainment, a pool I still swim in 24 years later. While print was still our primary mission in the early 2000s, I sensed the tides were shifting and happily became one of the paper’s first bloggers.
Instead of chasing A1 stories, I wrote a radio blog, eventually adding TV to the mix. I also started a second “American Idol” blog where I’d recap every episode in forensic detail. Those early entries felt like throwaway diary entries more than news stories. But the AJC was seeking younger viewers online and I was able to blend personality and opinion about NeNe Leakes or Bert Weiss. In 2010, page views were digital cocaine, and I generated more than 10 million that year.
In recent years, my focus shifted again as the paper de-emphasized clicks and went behind a paywall. I now seek exclusivity, depth and information that adds value to subscribers, not a recap of what TMZ just wrote. In the past three years, I have written more impactful A1 and Sunday print stories than I did in the previous decade combined.
When news of the inevitable end came this fall, I felt a weight of sadness I hadn’t expected. I will genuinely miss the crinkle of that paper, the visceral satisfaction of a juicy Bill Torpy column and, egotistically, my byline on A1 or the Living front.
Doug Roberson
2007: Sports Reporter, Atlanta United.
Growing up in Mableton, my parents subscribed to The Atlanta Journal, the Atlanta Constitution and the Marietta Daily journal.
When I realized I wanted to be a journalist, it was because of the Journal and the Constitution.
Working there became my life’s goal.
That goal was realized on Nov. 12, 2007, when I walked in the doors on Marietta Street as the new college sports and golf editor. That was my “you made it” moment.
Working in the same building that Furman Bisher, Lewis Grizzard and Mark Bradley and Chris Mortensen
Van McKenzie and Tim Tucker and Steve Hummer and so many others across so many sections fulfilled my dream.
Brooke Howard
2024, UATL Reporter
There’s nothing like a writer seeing their name in print. It was a longing I’ve held since I was a kid, and I enjoyed it during my youth while writing in school newspapers and magazines. But seeing my name in a major publication as a professional writer was always the ultimate goal.
For years, women were deemed not intelligent enough or emotionally capable of being journalists, especially politics. For Black women, that margin was even thinner. I always reminded myself of the odds I was up against.
Just as my one-year anniversary approached at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I got my first front page featured story.
“Shutdown a strain on Black women” put my name out there on a topic I was passionate about and the political beat I had been striving to break into for years. I made sure to grab multiple copies as keepsakes, but it wasn’t lost on me that I just barely conquered such a feat before the print edition of the paper went out of production.
The day of one of my biggest achievements simultaneously became melancholic because I believed there was a slim chance I’d get to experience that same joy again.
Before my feature story, I was sad to see the vanishing of physical news because I knew the societal and historical importance it held. But after seeing my name on the front page, on a community I will continue to cover, it finally felt personal.
Hyosub Shin
2007, Photographer
As a photojournalist, nothing has brought me more joy than seeing my photographs in print. It always felt special to spot a newspaper in someone’s hands at the gym, in a public library, or at an airport newsstand after a trip. I loved walking into my neighborhood Kroger and seeing the Sunday paper with my photo on display.
Among many great memories, one stands out: the “Champs!” edition after the Atlanta Braves won the 2021 World Series. The next morning in a hotel room, I opened the e-paper and saw my celebration photo splashed across the front page — full vertical, like a book cover. “OMG. Thank God.” Words can’t describe that feeling.
Traveling home with AJC’s legendary sports photographer Curtis Compton, we heard Braves fans had driven in from all over metro Atlanta to buy the “Champs!” edition. Later, I even saw copies listed for over $200 on eBay.
I felt like a star — completely over the moon. But then I realized it wasn’t just happiness; it was gratitude. As a naturalized citizen from Seoul, Korea, I asked myself: how many people get to experience this?
Print gave me countless memories over 18 years.
Alexis Stevens
2000, Breaking News
From the time I learned to read, I have been reading The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
When a little boy in my first grade died when he was struck by a car on the street where he lived, I flipped through the pages to see if I could find the article.
When my dad took me to see the Atlanta Braves play in 1981, I looked in the paper the next day to read about Los Angeles pitcher Fernando Valenzuela losing in his otherwise amazing rookie year.
And when the AJC began delivering to the Berry College dorms, I got my own subscription.
Accepting a job in December 2000 as an AJC sports page designer was a highlight of my career. I was now part of a massive newsroom at the newspaper I loved.
My job was designing pages of the sports section, sometimes waiting until the Braves finished up games on the West Coast before my workday was done. I later had the opportunity to work on a variety of sections of the paper, including the occasional 1A.
In 2008, our design desk was trimmed, and we had the chance to apply for different jobs. I applied to be a reporter and was assigned to the Cobb County education beat.
The following spring, the AJC’s breaking news desk was created and I was a founding member. All of these years later, I’m still covering the news of the day, whether it’s crime or something else captivating the city.
I know I’ll miss the ink on my hands from reading the newspaper. But the AJC’s mission of informing the public won’t change.
In December, I hit 25 years as an AJC employee.
I’m grateful.
D. Orlando Ledbetter
2003, NFL writer
After being out of the business for a few years (to practice law), I wanted to get back into journalism. I started at the AJC as one of the high school reporters in the Gwinnett bureau in November of 2003.
My big break came when I was assigned to cover the Falcons in the NFL playoffs after the 2004 season. I haven’t been off the beat since. I’d previously covered the Bengals (Cincinnati Enquirer), the Packers (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) and was a founding member and first secretary of the NABJ Sports Task Force in (1987-1992).
Some of the highlights along the way included covering the federal dogfighting trial that ensnarled team quarterback Michael Vick during the 2007 season, the remaking of the team under coach Mike Smith and general manager Thomas Dimtroff and the eventual climb to Super Bowl 51 under coach Dan Quinn.
During my tenure, it was an honor to serve as the first Black president of the Pro Football Writers of America (2013-2015)
It was a pleasure to be named the co-Georgia Sports Writer of the year in 2022 by the National Sports Media Association. In 2024, it was an honor to be inducted into the writer’s wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame after being named the 2024 Bill Nunn Jr. Award winner by the Pro Football Writers of America.
Ariel Hart
2005, Health Reporter
I arrived in Atlanta right out of journalism school, working as a freelancer.
The AJC paid me $150 or $300 for every story I turned in, depending on the section of the print paper that it was for.
My big break at the AJC came after one section’s editor asked me to report a short piece about a recent lottery prize: A jewelry store owner playing scratch-off cards had won about $200,000.
It was fun.
She was colorful and talked about how the money helped her pay off debts that weigh so many small business owners.
I wondered, though, was that story one-sided?
Before I filed, I poked around for a Gamblers Anonymous meeting to see if someone there had anything relevant to say. One group met near me for breakfast at 7 a.m.
I showed up early to meet the host. It turned out, when the lottery passed Georgia’s Legislature to fund the HOPE scholarship, this guy had been deeply involved in trying to mitigate the harm he expected.
The lottery in his eyes was a gateway for people who otherwise wouldn’t have encountered gambling. And things had turned out even worse than he thought.
Promises the state made in passing the bill had not panned out. I took off on more reporting from there.
The story ran across the top of the AJC’s front page, an A1 byline.
And the governor’s office had to take notice of the problems.
Ernie Suggs
1997, Race and Culture Reporter
By the time Maynard Jackson died on June 23, 2003, I’d been at the paper six years. I was solid, but nothing I’d done felt all that remarkable. His death hit the newsroom hard because it was sudden, and we hadn’t prepared what we call an advance obit. Editors scrambled until Bert Roughton walked to my desk, leaned in, and said, “We need you to write Maynard’s obit.”
Then he walked away.
I spent the day on the phone, talking to people who knew him best and digging through his record to build the story that would anchor the next day’s front page. When I turned it in, Bert read it and — if you know Bert, you know he didn’t sugarcoat it. He told me it wasn’t good enough.
The facts were there. The heart wasn’t. This, he reminded me, was the biggest story I’d written, the kind of story people would read a century from now. I needed to make them feel it.
I rewrote the lede, and the story flowed.
The next day, the front page carried our 2,200-word obituary under the headline “A lion of a man.”
That story marked the moment I knew I had arrived here. As the paper’s race and civil rights reporter, I’ve since chronicled the lives of Coretta Scott King, Hosea Williams, James Orange, C.T. Vivian, Joseph Lowery, John Lewis, Jimmy Carter.
I’ve also had the solemn honor of writing their obituaries— telling the stories of people who shaped this city, in life and in their final chapter.
And it all started with Maynard. His obituary didn’t just introduce me to the responsibility of telling Black stories at the end. It taught me, regardless of the story, how to meet the moment. Every time I sit down to write one now, I still hear Bert in the back of my mind, reminding me to get it right — because someone, someday, will be reading.
Greg Bluestein
2012, Political Reporter
By the time I caught my big break at the AJC, I had already finished my internship and was back in Athens toiling away at the student newspaper. But there was no feeling quite like picking up a copy of the paper at the Varsity and seeing my feature story on the front page.
he AJC was always a part of my life. My cousin, Eleanor Ringel, was the longtime film critic. Braves beat writer I.J. Rosenberg visited my fourth grade class and lit a spark I could never snuff out.
Around that time, I convinced my parents to subscribe so I could read the baseball coverage, but I soon found myself discovering the wider world in its pages.
As a college sophomore, I’d been told that despite previous stops at a suburban weekly and at the Savannah paper, my résumé was too thin for an AJC internship. But that suddenly changed after I landed a Wall Street Journal stint in the spring of 2003, and a hiring editor gave me the OK to join for the summer.
It was life-changing. I joined a 50-person business desk and scooped up every story that fell through the cracks. I pitched across sections, shadowed reporters on play reviews and economic development deals, and learned the rhythms of a newsroom bursting with talent.
I wrote the paper’s first deep dive into a new practice called “text messaging.” I landed A1 pieces on George W. Bush-era tax policies. I even helped with the obituary of former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr., tentatively tapping out feeds for an intimidating star reporter named Ernie Suggs.
But the goal was a coveted front-page feature. Early on, a senior editor warned us that no matter how many bylines we collected, nobody gets hired straight out of an AJC internship. “Even if you fill up A1,” she said, “you still have to pay your dues.”
I had a full year left at UGA, but I was determined anyway. Near the end of my summer, I found my shot: a group of safety experts who built a company fighting terrorist threats and biosecurity hazards. It was the sort of quirky, ambitious feature I wanted to tackle.
My internship ended in early August. I went back to Athens. The story still hadn’t run. I worried it never would. Then one morning, I picked up the paper — and there it was. A1. Within hours, it felt like all of metro Atlanta had seen it.
Since returning to the AJC full-time in 2012, I’ve written or contributed to nearly 5,000 print stories. But nothing has ever matched that first big hit.
DeAsia Paige
2022, Culture Reporter
I’m not sure if I’ve had a “big break,” and even if I did have one, it’s hard for me to fully acknowledge it.
I’m always so focused on the next steps that remaining present is difficult for me, even when I want to (I’m working on this in therapy).
But reading a print copy of my work made time stop. It forced me to live in the moment.
Seeing my Sunday Living & Arts cover story on Usher was one of those, very rare, instances.
A teaser of the story was placed on A1. Upon seeing it, I was suddenly transported to the joy of my interview with him, and the hard work that led to that moment.
Booking Usher for the story took roughly a year. And there were times when I thought it would never happen.
That’s the game of securing big celebrity interviews: immense patience and understanding. Usher was well worth the wait. I interviewed him in 2024. On Valentine’s Day. A few days after his show-stopping Super Bowl performance. And, his wedding.
Usher’s life and career entered a renaissance. The AJC was there to capture it. The R&B legend, wearing a black leather jacket and his signature “U” chain, arrived to our in-person conversation looking every bit like the superstar that he is.
He was gentle and kind. His calm demeanor, amid his extremely busy schedule, helped ease my nerves. We talked for over an hour, giving me more than enough to write a careful and fair profile of an icon who was reaching a career-defining peak in his mid 40s—and how he did all of it with Atlanta by his side.
Reading the story in print reminded me of the magic of that day. It’s hung on a wall in my apartment so I never forget.
David Wickert
2010, Government Reporter
For most of my reporting career, A1 stories were the gold standard for measuring your performance. And it still gives me a lift to see my name on A1.
So, I keep track of my A1 stories. During my 15-plus years at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I’ve had 553 A1 stories and counting.
My first: a look at Gwinnett County’s deeply unpopular (and ultimately abandoned) effort to privatize its Briscoe Field airport. My most recent: a victory for Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in a campaign finance dispute with his Republican rival, Attorney General Chris Carr.
A lot of people are sentimental about the printed paper, but I’m not one of them. Maybe it’s because I’ve already seen several technological revolutions in the newspaper business.
At my first job, a weekly newspaper in East Tennessee, I wrote on an IBM Selectric typewriter. Since then, I’ve reported the news via desktop computers, laptops and iPhones. I’ve recorded videos and podcasts. I’ve shared my work on TV, radio and social media. I hope to be around for whatever’s next.
So, I’ll miss the print edition. But the news is still the news. It’s the news I love — not the paper.
Kevin Whaley
2006, Breaking News Editor
When I accepted a job as an editor in the AJC’s sports department in April 2006, I vividly remember what a colleague at the Indianapolis Star told me: “That’s a place where you can retire.”
Not only did he think the AJC was a world-class paper, he also knew Georgia was home. He figured I’d be here for the rest of my career, even though I was still young at the time.
I can’t help but feel just a little sad thinking about the final newspaper being printed.
I’ve been part of a newspaper staff every day since my freshman year in high school. That continued through college (Go Dawgs!) and has spanned my entire professional career, from Georgia to California to Indiana and back.
I’m old enough to have used a pica pole and a proportion wheel, cut copy with an X-ActoCTO knife in the backshop, and drawn up page designs on paper. What relics!
I’ve spent more late nights and weekends in the AJC office than I care to remember, at one point helping put together massive print sports sections, including two on Saturdays in the fall.
Those were demanding days, with an abundance of stories seemingly all arriving at the same time. But when you finally packed up and went home, you were proud of what you had produced.
Tired, yes, but proud.
You hoped the readers would appreciate your efforts when they opened those sections the next morning.
The AJC was also kind enough to allow me to share a piece of my personal life with our readers. Two of the things I enjoyed the most were writing about my special needs son, who is now 20, and producing a special section on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, which featured a bio about my grandfather who fought in the Pacific. I still have those papers.
Not being able to hold an AJC in my hands will be strange. No more grabbing a copy for posterity. No more using a cool cover for a poster.
It’s the end of an era. I’m glad I was part of it.
Holly Steel
1999, Sunday Editor
My first day at the AJC was Dec. 27, 1999.
Since I was a new hire, I was one of the few staffers who didn’t have to work past midnight on New Year’s Eve waiting for the Y2K computer disaster that never happened.
Working in a newsroom is different from your typical office environment, although it is a little bit like “The Office.”
The deadline work can be grinding, but you’ll be doing it with some of the funniest people you’ve ever met.
I’ve always worked in print editing, starting as a page designer, then a features section editor and news curator. A producer, I would tell people. Like a TV producer, but for a newspaper.
“I’m still riding the print dinosaur,” I would say, against the advice of my former managing editor.
My big break at the AJC came last year, when I became Sunday editor.
I saw the Sunday edition as our best hope for a continued future in print and I made it better by expanding the Business section and running more local news.
I was working on other ways to serve our Sunday readers, but I ran out of time.
On Jan. 1, the AJC’s print dinosaur will be no more.
My last day at the AJC will be 26 years and 5 days after my first.
About the Author
Ernie Suggs is an enterprise reporter covering race and culture for the AJC since 1997. A 1990 graduate of N.C. Central University and a 2009 Harvard University Nieman Fellow, he is also the former vice president of the National Association of Black Journalists. His obsession with Prince, Spike Lee movies, Hamilton and the New York Yankees is odd.
