The reasoning and peril behind the Atlanta Journal-Constitution going digital only

As The New York Times reported Thursday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will discontinue its print edition at the end of the year, the largest metro to do so. Will others follow?

I wouldn’t look for a stampede. Cutbacks to just a few days a week or Sunday-only have become common in the industry, but quitting print altogether is not. That’s because Sunday papers typically remain profitable, popular with advertisers and a segment of readers. Despite steep declines that show no signs of moderating in 2025, print still contributes a meaningful share of revenue (half or more at many outlets) since it commands much higher rates among both subscribers and advertisers.

As president and publisher Andrew Morse explained to the Times, the AJC is facing the painful choice of whether to disrupt itself. While the industry’s consensus strategy has been to make the print-digital transition gradual, his organization has decided instead to take a quick and giant step forward. It’s a high-wire exercise without a net, but certainly dawdling hasn’t worked much.

The AJC is also well-positioned to take the risk. Its parent, Cox Enterprises, is a rich, family-controlled conglomerate with roots in cable, committed to a five-year reinvestment plan estimated, NPR reported, to cost $150 million. So there’s a financial cushion if the changes prompt short-term losses for a few years.

On the cost of continuing print as circulation withers, Morse is on rock-solid ground. Newsprint and associated printing plants are big, logical targets for bringing expenses down. Outsourcing, in some cases to a printing facility several hundred miles away, has been a frequent means to that end, too. As bad or worse an expense, though, is the less obvious one of getting print papers delivered. A part-time job in the middle of the night attracts few takers anymore. Routes that used to be compact are now spread out.

The only way to get out of all those costs is to stop printing altogether.

On the digital revenue side, the case is shakier. As Morse told the Times, like nearly all newspaper digital outlets and many that are digital only, AJC’s traffic from search has taken a huge hit over the last year. Facebook is phasing down news on its newsfeed, Google’s algorithms aren’t what they used to be, and even in the early days of artificial intelligence, it has clearly displaced searches that would lead to news outlets.

As the Times reported, with only 75,000 paid digital-only subscribers now, the AJC has no path to Morse’s earlier goal of 500,000 by the end of 2026. (I emailed Morse several questions and will add his comments if I hear back.)

A subset of the challenge is getting the remaining print subscribers to shift to digital subscriptions. Those organizations that have cut back to only a few days of print a week — Poynter’s Tampa Bay Times and The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette among them — heavily promote e-replica editions, a digital format with a print layout. The alternative satisfies some but by no means all traditionalists.

Thus, execution of the AJC’s strategy, difficult in any case, is looking that much more difficult. But that does not blow away the premise that digital is the future, so let’s get on with it.

An email conversation earlier this week with another newspaper organization’s CEO reminded me of one more reason to proceed with caution. “The goal of the print product is to serve as a branding vehicle,” she wrote, even “as the primary means of information delivery these days are social and web.”

I’m a convert to digital — a superior news option for timeliness, visuals and a wider range of presentations. But I get that print may connote solid and trustworthy, where digital has an ethereal feel.

So, yes, the future belongs to the bold (except sometimes when it doesn’t). The AJC plan will demand a lot of its staff — and of its customers, too — if it is to succeed.