AJC explodes the newsroom, makes MAJOR changes; Study says: Ya gotsta spend money to make it; Newpaper’s public record database nets 4 million hits in less than three months; Teaching multimedia tips

AJC announces major restructuring
80 voluntary buyouts. Reorganizing the newsroom structure (Tim Porter’s influence to ‘Explode the newsroom‘?). Goes web-centric. Focuses on local. Trimming circulation in outlying areas of Georgia. Many more changes to come as they rebuild, reallocate resources over the next 4-6 months.

Memo from Journal-Constitution editor Wallace
“We must organize ourselves to meet these goals. That means a major shift in the way we work. Our current structure is fine for the pace and demands of a printed newspaper, but isn’t structured for online’s immediacy and evolving needs.”

A letter to AJC Readers (from the Publisher)
“The AJC’s emphasis will remain on that which is local — that which most touches our lives — but we will continue to provide news of the region, the nation and the world.“

‘AJC’ Announces Buyouts and ‘Realignment’
“What’s changing? First, we’ll untangle the bureaucracy by moving from more than a dozen departments and desks to four main departments. We’ll also reduce the number of management layers. The four new departments are: News & Information, Enterprise, Digital, Print. The idea is to separate content from production. This is a new way of thinking for us, but I believe it is the best way forward.”

Al Cross: ‘AJC’ Cutbacks Will Have Rural Fallout
“Starting April 1, the paper’s direct distribution will be limited to the 73 Georgia counties closest to Atlanta. That is fewer than half of Georgia’s 159 counties, so those beyond Macon and Augusta appear likely to be left out.”

Now, back to your regularly scheduled Journerdism…

Multimedia in the classroom
Excellent, succinct post from Daniel Sato on teaching multimedia to students. The gist is: Teach storytelling, how to break stories down and present them visually. Not how to use X program or Y Flash component. The programs and tools we use will evolve and change, good storytelling and planning won’t.

Gannett’s New Lease On News — Public records site lands 4 millions pageviews since December launch
“A big hit at Gannett’s Asbury Park Press’ app.com is its DataUniverse. There users can while away the hours dredging all manner of state and local databases: home sales, crime statistics, school district SAT scores, inmate records. If this sounds sleep-inducing, know that DataUniverse has notched over 4 million page views since its December launch.” Nice! The interface/user experience could use a major facelift but it’s actually pretty cool… looking up teacher salaries and all sorts of local facts. And ANY newspaper can do this right now!

ESPN.com Allows Comments on Every Article
“ESPN.com has enabled comments on every single story they post, even ones from the wires. The feature is called ESPN Conversation”

Not my job doesn’t exist anymore in newspapers
“My job is staff writer. I’m the data guy on the investigative team of the St. Petersburg Times. But if you want to get and keep a job in journalism today, keep this in mind: The words “not my job” should never leave your mouth”

Web 4.0 on its way : Terminator to become a reality
“As if Tim Berners-Lee’s talk of the semantic web hasn’t excited you enough (admit it, you’re pretty excited) well hold on to your hats because Web 4.0 will follow hot on its heels, says Nova Spicack of O’Reilly Radar.”

‘Citizen Journalism’ Is Only One Of Many Necessary Tools.
“But citizen journalism is a supplement, not a panacea. Citizen journalism itself isn’t going to reverse the declines in news readership, listernership, and viewership. Not by a longshot. The real solution requires more than just the tools that folks in our industry are calling ‘citizen journalism’ and that are providing so much distraction.”

Newsroom spending raises U.S. newspaper profits-study
“If you lower the amount of money spent in the newsroom, then pretty soon the news product becomes so bad that you begin to lose money…” (Via Romensko)

Reflections of a Newsosaur: Wrong number, E.T.
More wacky NAA ad campaigns.

Creating comic strips from your photos
More ways to waste my time fruitlessly.

Streaker interrupts live broadcast
I’ve seen clips like this before, but this makes me miss Ohio. Cabbage patching wearing nothing but boxers and gloves in blizzard conditions. ::singing “Memories…”::