Atlanta Journal-Constitution ends print edition after 155 years

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will publish its last print edition on December 31, closing a chapter that began in 1868 as it moves all resources into digital publishing.

Publisher Andrew Morse, who joined in 2023, told The New York Times, which broke the story, that the decision was overdue. “Printing newspapers and putting them in trucks and delivering them on people’s front stoops has not been the most effective way to distribute the news in a very long time,” he said.

The AJC becomes one of the largest U.S. dailies to abandon print entirely, a step few peers have yet taken despite industry-wide declines. A third of American dailies still print seven days a week, while others have reduced frequency.

In the UK, the Indpendent has been digital only since February 2016 and has gained plaudits for its digital innovation since it stopped printing.

Cox Enterprises, the AJC’s parent, has invested $150m in digital transformation over five years. Morse has expanded product, technology, analytics and marketing teams, launched new bureaus across Georgia, built a digital video team and relocated the newsroom to Midtown Atlanta under the slogan “The Substance and Soul of the South.”

It invested in its app product, building an award-winning new version with UK firm Pugpig.

Morse set a target of 500,000 digital subscribers by 2026. The AJC has only about 115,000 paying subscribers today, 75,000 of them digital-only. Still, digital subscriptions are up 35% year-on-year, and revenue is projected to rise 22% by 2025.

One headwind has been generative AI. “Our organic traffic from Google has dropped 40 percent in the last year. Never could have predicted that,” Morse said. He argued that the print product, though still modestly profitable, was slowing the digital shift: “It’s not going to be where audiences engage with us. It’s not where advertisers want to be a part of.”

The change will affect about 30 print staff, half of them part-time. Readers will still have access to an e-paper replica, and staff will work with subscribers to transition online.

“I love print, but I love journalism more,” Morse said. “Unless news organisations have the courage to disrupt themselves faster than the marketplace is disrupting the industry, really important institutions that have existed for generations will cease to exist.”