Readers get a peek behind our newsprint curtain
The question --- posed by a reader who visited the newspaper this week --- is a keeper: "How do you know this is all the news?"
It was posed after 40-plus visitors observed our afternoon news meeting Wednesday, and it prompted us to think on a number of levels.
The 500 journalists who work for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution can't begin to cover all the news of this sprawling metro area. Our goal is to cover those issues and events that have the most relevance and interest to the people who live here. It's a moving target and late-breaking news often upsets the best-laid plans.
When Thursday's paper came out, readers who had attended our open house wondered why some of the stories discussed in the Wednesday news meeting weren't in the newspaper....
Reporters and editors at the AJC are often challenged about story choices and angles. Sometimes, that criticism is warranted. D.A. King, a vocal opponent of illegal immigration, questioned editors during the open house about a story based on a recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health on the cost of immigrant health care.
From King's vantage point, the headline on our story "Immigrants subsidize care" was misleading and didn't accurately reflect the study's findings. He also wondered why we hadn't written about other studies. For readers such as King, we'll never write enough about this topic....
Read the complete article.