http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2011/12/07/athens-banner-herald-home-sold-for.html

You have to wonder if this might be the start of the ABH newspaper cutting back on its print products and focusing mostly on its “digital first” program. Many daily newspapers are really looking at iPad and other pad distribution for the long term. Getting rid of print and its associated distribution costs would cut a huge amount of expense out the system.

What remains to be seen, however, is whether or not readers are ready to give up the printed page for the digital page.

After 2013, the Journal will rotate legal organ status with the Barrow County News on two-year cycles.

The legal organ status is determined by a vote of the sheriff, probate judge and clerk of superior court. The secretary of state’s office is notified each December by the probate judge as to the newspaper that is to serve for the following year.

The Times made a push with its daily newspaper in the Jefferson area last year, but didn’t do very well, in part due to daily distribution in the same area from the Athens Banner Herald and the AJC.

During the summer, The Times began the process of pushing subscribers for its formerly free The Paper. The subscription effort was targeted in the Jefferson area and it looked as if The Times would abandon its West Jackson office for Jefferson.

But insiders report that The Paper couldn’t generate very many paid subscriptions and has now gone back to a totally free distribution model, except for a few paid news racks in the Jefferson area.

The Times began is The Paper in 2005 to compete with our Braselton News. But since that time, the West Jackson market fell on hard times due to the recession. For now, both papers remain free circulation in the Braselton-Hoschton market.

Mainstreet Newspapers also competes with The Times in Barrow County.

A story earlier this week in a competing newspaper was so fawning and misleading about an important local issue that it bears comment here.

In our Barrow County newspaper last week, we broke a story about how Winder city officials had mishandled the purging of names from the city’s voter list, resulting in around 40% of registered city voters targeted to have their names purged from the list. They would have had to vote a provisional ballot if that had happened.

The city tried to blame our newspaper for making a big deal out of the issue and claimed that the list we had was not “final.” The other newspaper in town quickly became the city’s mouthpiece in the issue. In a lengthy, misleading story, they published the city’s spin on the matter, including this paragraph:

“Essentially, any work that was done on this list is hypothetical and not written in stone. No one was removed from the voters list. Being hypothetical, that list was not an accurate representation of who will be challenged by the city.”

Hypothetical?

No attribution was given for that nutty comment, meaning the newspaper simply made up a cover story for their friends at city hall.

That’s poor journalism. Essentially, it was hypothetical journalism.

It has also began doing two editions, one geared for the Jefferson market and a slightly different front page for the Braselton-Hoschton area. And the firm recently moved its mailing address to a PO box, an indication it may be laying the groundwork to give up its physical office in Hoschton.

The Times began its weekly paper in Hoschton at the same time our firm began the Braselton News as an extension of The Jackson Herald in 2005. That was at the heyday of the building boom and since then, the Braselton-Hoschton retail and real estate market has fallen on hard times.

With its increasing focus on reporting in the Jefferson area, it appears as if the Times may abandon Hoschton for an office in the county seat to go head to head with The Herald. Earlier efforts to push The Times daily paper into the Jefferson market failed.

Jackson County is a battleground between three large corporate daily newspaper chains — Athens (owned by one Morris group); Gainesville (owned by the other Morris chain); and Gwinnett (owned by another large chain.)

So what is happening?

It appears that some daily newspapers are looking to cut back on their print editions and move toward heavier digital delivery on iPads and other similar devices. The Morris newspaper group, including the Athens Banner Herald, are making noise that seems like they’re moving that direction. Morris’ “digital first” plans imply that in the next few years, the company will be moving away from print into more iPad delivery as a new business model. Bolstering that idea are rumors that the ABH will be outsourcing its printing soon. Given Morris’ debt load, any way to cut costs is being looked at by the firm. Moving to digital distribution and cutting printing back is one way to achieve that. (Scuttlebutt also indicates that Morris is trying to sell its ABH building to UGA, then lease back part of the building for its operations sans printing.)

Other daily newspapers, including the AJC, are also reportedly looking at iPad distribution as a new business model. The industry publication Editor & Publisher had an article last week about the boom in iPads and how that might be an opportunity for newspapers.

Frankly, nobody knows how newspapers will make the digital transition. Print isn’t dead, but clearly the industry is shifting and the old model is changing.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a college town like Athens move toward digital as its primary mode of delivery. (ABH publisher Scot Morrissey is known for his push toward an all-digital future.) The financial pressures Morris faces is a strong incentive to experiment with cost-cutting ideas. Going “digital first” with a one or two day print product is one way to do that.

Could that be because Clarke County students did so poorly on the EOCT?

Pretty much across the board, the two public high schools in Clarke County were in the bottom 30% of all high schools in the state in last spring’s testing. That is consistent with other Clarke County school test results.

Yet the Athens-Clarke media just doesn’t report that important school data. While they relish reporting data from surrounding communities, they don’t pay too much attention to what’s happening in their own back yards.

The ABH, for example, posts detailed crime blotters online for every county in the area except Clarke County. There isn’t any crime in Clarke County I guess.

With the lack of local reporting, you have to wonder if the Athens media is being published by journalists, or by the local chamber of commerce.

http://www.barrowjournal.com/archives/5524-Tax-abatement-wasnt-a-good-deal-for-Barrow-County.html

The AJC also had an article Friday on that issue:

Jobs carry a high price tag

By Richard Halicks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
4:19 a.m. Friday, August 5, 2011
Researchers at the University of North Carolina discovered a disturbing trend last year regarding businesses that accept state incentives and tax breaks in return for creating jobs.
Four in 10 of those companies did not create jobs. They actually cut them.
Georgia has spent more than a half-billion dollars in the past 10 years on similar tax breaks and incentives, and you’re probably wondering how our programs performed.
Keep on wondering.
The state Revenue Department receives corporate tax records each year, but the taxpayers of Georgia – who bear the budgetary burden from fewer tax collections – do not have the right to review those reports. So you often can’t find out whether a company has lived up to its promises.
Without question, companies receiving incentives have created thousands of jobs in Georgia. But it’s unclear whether the loans and grants are necessary.
“Obviously, we don’t know whether these programs are effective or not,” said Sarah Beth Gehl, deputy director of the nonpartisan Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. “There are valid purposes for certain incentives. But with any program we need to have transparency and accountability to make sure we’re getting our money’s worth.”
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