What we lose when we lose print newspapers
A eulogy for the printed Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1868-2025. Rest in recycling bins.
A small but important thread of Southern history unraveled last week. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta’s paper of record for the last 157 years, published its final print edition on Dec. 31, and from here on out, the AJC will be all-digital. Paper newspapers in Atlanta thus join pay phones, Blockbuster VCR tapes, cassettes and paper tickets in the junk drawer of history, devoured and digested by the inexorable march of digital media.
The AJC isn’t stopping publication; the digital wing of the paper — if we can still call it that — is more vibrant than the physical one. The paper apparently has almost twice as many digital-only subscribers as physical-paper ones. Still, there’s something essential that’s being lost here, one more tangible connection traded for an ephemeral, digital one.
“Covers Dixie like the dew” — that was the AJC’s old slogan, one I always loved, even though (maybe because) the image was a little gross. The paper’s latest motto is “The substance and soul of the South,” and that also works. Some of the most important names in Deep South journalism passed through the AJC, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning anti-segregationist journalist Ralph McGill to the cranky, deep-fried columnist Lewis Grizzard, from the future Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell to my first inspiration, the cynically idealistic sportswriter Furman Bisher. (I loved the way he lionized Hank Aaron and sparred with Bear Bryant, even if I had no idea what his classic every-column sign-off — “Selah” — actually meant.)
You don’t have to look too hard around Atlanta’s sports bars to find framed copies of the AJC. Prints of “It’s Atlanta!”, heralding the city’s selection as host of the 1996 Olympics, and “CHAMPS!”, the full-page headline heralding the Braves’ 1995 World Series win, are everywhere to this day. And like every newspaper, there are countless AJC clippings of wedding announcements, obituaries, and the time Uncle Zeke got attacked by the organ grinder’s monkey in Underground Atlanta tucked into family albums, Bibles and filing cabinets all over the South.
On one wall of my house hangs a framed, deeply yellowed copy of an AJC page from Saturday, June 4, 1977 featuring my first-ever byline. Back in those days, the paper would give over an entire page of its weekend edition to schoolchildren who would report on a major (for them) issue of the day. Our topic: healthy eating. The headline of my first published story, a recap of a hamburger taste test, was “Burger Test Shows The Best.” (The lede: “Even blindfolded, kids know what they like.” Tight! And also vaguely disturbing!)
Anyway, the point is, I still have that newspaper from nearly 50 years ago. And I’ll hang onto it until it disintegrates, or until some descendant of mine tosses it and it ends up in a space landfill. A bookmark in a browser, a PDF, a misaligned printed-out copy … none of them hit the same as that old yellow newspaper, not even close.
Back before kids devoured my weekends, I’d sit with a massive Sunday edition of the AJC, or the Washington Post or the New York Times, and flip through pages the size of a stack of folded towels. The newsprint on your fingertips, that pop of paper as you opened and refolded the sections, the instant immersion into the news of the day without distracting pop-ups … man, that’s just irreplaceable.
But here’s the sad truth. I’d love to sit up on my little perch and be all high-and-mighty about the demise of print journalism, but the reality is, I can’t remember the last time I bought a print newspaper … and I’m a damn journalist. The last print copy of the AJC I own contains my father’s obituary from more than two years ago. For awhile, I got printed copies of the Wall Street Journal delivered on weekends — a nice perk of a subscription to the digital version — but most of those have ended up stacked in a pile in my garage, awaiting their fate as fire-pit kindling.
The digital world is too easy, too enticing to escape. Digital books are cheaper than printed ones. Virtually every movie ever filmed is just a couple clicks and a few bucks away, and you never have to worry about that Friday night Blockbuster dilemma of what to watch when all the good stuff has already been rented. You can stream almost the entirety of recorded music for the cost of one album a month. It’s perfect, right?
Well, almost. All it takes is one incident to remember you’re not buying a product, you’re buying a service … and services can change at any time.
For instance, right now, if you happen to be a fan of the Traveling Wilburys — the ‘80s supergroup that included Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison1 — you won’t find them streaming on Spotify or Apple Music. Why not? Who the hell knows? But somewhere, some lawyer recently instructed some tech to flip a metaphorical switch, and whoosh, the entire Wilburys discography is gone — or, more to the point, grayed out. You can see the songs, you can remember the cheerful chords of “End of the Line,” but you can’t play them because of some faceless corporation’s decree. Too bad, so sad. But while you’re here, can we interest you in a family subscription plan?
Sure, if you bought the CD back in the ‘80s, it’ll still play … but only if you have a CD player. In recent years, the music of everyone from Van Halen to Dr. Dre has vanished, sometimes briefly, sometimes permanently. Look at a monthly “What’s Leaving Netflix This Month” list for a reminder of how fleeting digital media can be, and how tenuous our hold is on it. (There’s more than one reason they call the digital warehouse “the cloud,” after all.)
Virtually all of my work — starting with these words you’re reading right here — exists only in a digital form. It means I can reach far more people than I could with most print media, sure, but it also means this work is here and then gone. (I pay $15 a month for an online portfolio just to make sure my work doesn’t vanish if one of my past publications decides to up and erase its archives — which happens more often than you’d believe.) Hell, a not-inconsequential reason why I write books is to be able to hold some of my work in my hands.2
Something ineffable but necessary is lost when we lose physical media, when we become licensees rather than readers, listeners and viewers. There’s an impermanence to digital media, and a deep tangible, spiritual connection when you can hold the same paper, the same record that you did as a much younger you … or even better, that your parents or grandparents once held. These things matter, even if we’re all rushing too fast into the future to pay them much attention.
The old AJC covered Dixie like the dew. The new AJC — and all its digital counterparts — evaporates like the dew, faster than you'd expect and before you’re even aware it’s gone.
So next time you can, buy a hard copy of your favorite book, or your favorite old LP, or even a classic Goodwill-shelf VCR tape. Sock it away for the future. Your kids and grandkids will thank you. Selah.
—Jay
Land Cat, Georgia
This is issue #172 of Flashlight & A Biscuit. Check out all the past issues right here. Feel free to email me with your thoughts, tips and advice. If you’re new around here, jump right to our most-read stories, or check out some of our recent hits:
Home Turn, our new show for NASCAR Studios, is right here for you to watch:
Hey, my new book is out!
Talking Southern culture with the great John T. Edge
Crime and college football, a glorious pairing
Drinking beers at a serial killer’s last resort
Our first documentary, on the famous Rama Jama’s diner in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
What does “Flashlight & A Biscuit” mean, anyway?
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Do not look up how “old” those supposedly over-the-hill rockers were when they recorded the Wilburys albums. Seriously. It’ll wreck your day.
I judge a book by how much it’d hurt if you hit somebody in the head with it. That’s why I try to get to 100,000 words every time I write one. That’ll leave a mark.
Preach. I was visiting my son and his family over the weekend. Like you, he gets the print version of WSJ on weekends. Saturday morning I retrieved it from the driveway, brought it in, sat at the kitchen table and began to read. In the next hour the different sections were spread across the table as my wife, son, daughter-in-law and grandson sat with me, leisurely reading and discussing different stories over coffee and breakfast. We don’t do that with our phones and iPads.
Great piece. I've ditched the Kindle and gone back to paper books--I realized that when I read on a screen, I don't remember what I've read. On paper, it just sticks in my brain better. I'll use a Kindle for traveling, but otherwise I want the dead-tree edition.