Archive for May, 2009

Julia Wallace, Editor

I first set foot in Atlanta in 1977 as an intern for the Atlanta Journal. I was immediately captivated by the brash and bold thinking of this community. It was the capital of the New South, emerging as a economic powerhouse that would grow and prosper.

I’m not sure I could have imagined what would transpire. Back then, the Braves were still losing, CNN was three years away from creation, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank were still working for Handy Dan and hadn’t created Home Depot. UPS was in Connecticut. The Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coke, Cobb Energy Centre — none of that was here. We didn’t even have pandas back then.

In the past 30 years, metro Atlanta has boomed into a thriving, vibrant community that has become a wonderful home for me, my family and for millions of others.

What will it look like 30 years from now? Right now, our country faces significant economic challenges. As a nation, we will come through these challenges and become …

Continue reading A better Atlanta »

We at accessAtlanta take the job of helping you figure out what to do for fun very seriously. That’s why we’ve just given our See & Do platform a very serious face lift to be much more fun based on what you’ve told us you’ve loved about our See & Do, and what you could do without.

It’s now easier than ever to not only look for what to do, but to actually make it happen. Buy that ticket. Grab that coupon. Make that reservation! We’re now a real one-stop-shop for See & Do — so you can act on your fun instincts before you get sucked back into the non-fun stuff.

What you’ve already noticed, no doubt, is the change to See & Do Search. It’s now right up at the top of accessAtlanta.com, and looks like this:

(You can still find site search, too. That’s at the bottom of every See & Do page, and in the upper right of every page on the rest of the site.)

Here’s a quick rundown of how our new See & Do Search works. To start your search, click on the type of …

Continue reading accessAtlanta launches new See & Do platform »

Shawn McIntosh, Public editor

Every day, I hear from dozens of readers. I get e-mails, phone calls and my favorite — hand-written letters.

It probably won’t surprise you to know that a fair amount of that correspondence includes complaints.
So thanks for complaining. Not that I want you to be unhappy, but when you are, and you let me know, it can make the newspaper better.

In the month since we launched the new AJC design, editors have responded to feedback I’ve passed on in dozens of ways. I don’t want to imply that they have been able to satisfy every reader’s preference, as the things some readers love (the narrower page, for example) are the exact same things others readers hate.

But when there’s consistency in complaints, the editors are especially attentive to what I hear from readers.

Here are some changes they’ve made in the past month in response to reader feedback:

• Increased letter spacing of body text to improve readability.
• Changed the briefs columns on the front …

Continue reading Listening to readers »

Mark Waligore, Daily editor

I don’t know about you, but my mornings are pretty hectic.

I gulp down breakfast. Drink coffee. Walk the dog. Drink more coffee. Check my Blackberry. Then catch the train or brave traffic in to work. Sometime between waking up, taking Lola for a stroll around the neighborhood and all of that coffee, I carve aside some quiet time to read my morning AJC. Usually, I’m on my screened-in porch, with (you guessed it) another cup of coffee.

On most mornings, I spend 30 minutes or so with the paper.

Thirty minutes.

That’s certainly not as much time as I would like. But on most mornings, it’s all that time allows. Our research shows that most of our daily readers — and readers of other newspapers around the country — spend only 15 minutes a day with their morning paper.

Fifteen minutes.

Over the last few weeks, you’ve heard a lot about the Sunday paper and how Sundays are different. As the Daily Editor, I wanted to chat about the …

Continue reading Your daily news fix »

Charles Gay, Sunday editor

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Sunday is different, isn’t it?

There’s a Seinfeld episode in which goofy Kramer talks about how days of the week have a different “feel.” Certainly Monday feels different from Friday. I don’t know about you, but some of those busy weekdays start to run together for me.

Not Sunday. I treasure my Sundays and I bet you do too. Rather than gulping down breakfast and speed-reading my AJC, I can linger over the A and Sports sections in the early morning. I’m gone for a few hours for church, then back home I pick up Living & Arts over lunch. Maybe some yard work, then back inside to cool off with the Business section. After supper, I’ll scoop up whatever I missed. If it’s a really good paper, I’ll still be reading it into the week.

When we revamped the AJC, we talked a lot to readers and they told us to keep that “Sunday feel” in mind. …

Continue reading Welcome to ajcSunday »

Shawn McIntosh, Public editor

Whew… what a busy week.

Tuesday we launched the redesigned AJC. We knew some readers would take to it right away – and many did. We knew others would need time to adjust – and they are telling us the new design is getting more familiar and comfortable. And we expected to hear from many readers who don’t like the change at all. It won’t surprise you to learn that they have not been shy about telling us what they don’t like.

Thanks for all the feedback. We are listening and responding.

The biggest group of complaints related to readability: type too small, or too densely packed, print too light on the page, concerns about eye strain. So we’re already making adjustments. The main body text has been tracked out, with letters moved further apart, on most pages. The secondary sans serif font used for items like The Vent and obituaries has been updated from a light to a medium weight. And we’ve added boldness and improved spacing in some …

Continue reading Next: A new Sunday »