Atlanta Journal-Constitution to stop printing as it transitions to all-digital news

ATLANTA (AP) – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will stop providing a print edition at the end of the year and go completely digital, marking a dramatic change for a storied newspaper that was founded just a few years after the end of the Civil War.

The decision will make Atlanta the largest U.S. metro area without a printed daily newspaper, although some smaller metro Atlanta newspapers continue printing.

Publisher Andrew Morse made the announcement Thursday, saying the news organization will continue to report news using online, audio and video products.

“The fact is, many more people engage with our digital platforms and products today than with our print edition, and that shift is only accelerating,” Morse wrote in a letter to subscribers posted on the Journal-Constitution’s website. The AJC has about 115,000 total subscribers, of whom 75,000 are online only; Morse has set a goal of gaining 500,000 online subscribers.

The newspaper is privately owned by descendants of the Cox family. Former Ohio Gov. James Cox bought The Atlanta Journal in 1939 and The Atlanta Constitution in 1950. The Atlanta Constitution was founded in 1868 only a few years after the Civil War left Atlanta in ruins and was the platform of famous editors including New South booster Henry Grady and anti-segregationist Ralph McGill.

Morse said The Journal-Constitution will offer a new mobile app by the end of the year and will provide an electronic replica edition for subscribers who prefer the experience of the paper edition.

Many smaller newspapers have stopped printing, while others have cut back their days of publication. For example, The Tampa Bay Times, which serves Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida, prints only two days a week. But it’s been unusual until now for major metropolitan newspapers to entirely abandon print. The highest profile example is The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey. Once the top-selling newspaper in New Jersey, it stopped printing in February. The Newhouse family, which owns the Star-Ledger, has also stopped printing other sizable newspapers in New Jersey and Alabama.

The Cox family has invested in the news organization since Morse, a former CNN executive, became publisher in 2023. The Journal-Constitution has hired reporters in the Georgia cities of Athens, Macon and Savannah, expanded an offering focused on Black culture, and pushed new audio and video offerings. The business also moved into a new office in Atlanta’s Midtown neighborhood, returning inside the city limits from an office in the northern suburbs.

Company executives said the print edition was still profitable. The Journal-Constitution closed its own printing plants and outsourced printing to another newspaper in Gainesville, Georgia, in 2021. When Morse came on board, he paused a plan to curtail the print edition, but said now the time is right.

“We will begin the new year as a fully digital organization, committed, as always, to being the most essential and engaging news source for the people of Atlanta, Georgia and the South,” Morse wrote.