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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will stop printing at the end of 2025, going all-in on digital

Nieman Lab · Sophie Culpepper · last updated

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one of the country’s major metro dailies, will stop putting out a print newspaper at the end of this year. The Journal-Constitution will publish its final print edition on December 31, The New York Times reported Thursday, ending a 157-year print run.

Print newspapers, already vestigial in an era when news consumption overwhelmingly occurs online, have been slow to disappear entirely in part because many continue to turn a profit. (Just six years ago, in 2019, The Boston Globe was the first local newspaper whose digital subscribers surpassed print.) The Journal-Constitution’s print product remains profitable on its own and has about 40,000 subscribers, publisher and president Andrew Morse told the Times’ Katie Robertson. That’s down from 94,000 in 2020, and a zenith of around 630,000 in 2004.

Morse told the Times that he saw ceasing print altogether (rather than the half-measure of reducing print days) as the best way to speed up the publication’s digital transition.

Print is “not going to be where audiences engage with us,” he told the Times. “It’s not where advertisers want to be a part of.”

Nieman Lab’s Josh Benton recently pointed out that Advance, one local newspaper company that punches above its weight in digital audience, “has consistently been more aggressive than others in shifting from print to digital” — not just in embracing digital, but in leaving print.

In 2023, we reported on the Journal-Constitution’s ambitious push to reach 500,000 digital subscribers by 2026. The Times reports now that “the paper is not on a pace to hit that goal.” It has 75,000 digital-only subscribers, up from about 55,000 at the end of 2023, and 115,000 total paid subscribers.

About 30 staff members, half of them part-time, will lose their jobs due to the change.

Before Morse joined the Journal-Constitution, the publication had planned to cease print in June 2023. But Morse said he believed the news org needed to beef up its digital news product before taking that step. According to the Journal-Constitution, the timing of Thursday’s announcement “reflects the strength of the AJC’s journalism and digital products, not a need to hit a budget target.”

The Journal-Constitution will continue to offer an e-paper, and Morse told the Journal-Constitution it will launch a “white glove” customer service initiative to help print subscribers access the publication’s digital offerings. This fall, the publication will launch an updated version of its mobile app, “a customizable launching pad for news, video, podcasts, newsletters, the e-edition and perks for AJC subscribers.” The Journal-Constitution also plans to double down on events.

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