The old days at the ABJ are worth remembering. It was a special time at what was then a special newspaper. Here are a couple of observations which you may or may not choose to use on the blog.
The Incredible Shrinking News Hole
Before leaving Akron on the morning of Tuesday, June 19, for a return to the metro Atlanta area, I picked up a copy of that day's Akron Beacon Journal. While the quality of the product still seemed to be good, I was most impressed by how slim it was; how limited in news content.
That impression was reinforced a couple of hours later at a lunch stop in Marietta, Ohio, when I picked up a copy of Marietta A.M., the Marietta edition of the Parkersburg, WV, News. While I didn't actually measure the news columns, the Parkersburg News was easily twice or more the size of the Beacon Journal in space devoted to news coverage. Whatever it lacked in quality, it more than compensated for in quantity.
Needed: A Few Good Copy Editors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is not my favorite newspaper, but it is now the one that I peruse daily. Its news coverage is quite comprehensive and generally well done. However, it has a nasty habit of perpetrating some real clinkers on a fairly regular basis. The most recent was the subhead on the lead story on page one of the Sunday, June 24, edition.
It read: "An unlikely, close-knit bond develops between ancestors of slaves and the ancestors of their slave masters."
Surely, there must be someone among the copy editors at the AJC who knows the difference between ancestors and descendents. I can only imagine the author of this very good story pulling her hair out when she saw the Sunday paper.
I can also imagine the reaction of Ben Maidenburg if this had been the ABJ in the old days.
Dick
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