Get Back Loretta

The CMA's annual awards show moves to NYC tonight. Why this has to be is beyond me. I can't think of a single New Yorker who listens to or appreciates country music. Then again, they probably can't get over Brooks and Dunn shouting cliche-ridden jingles from their rooftops. Neither can I.

On the way to a real job interview today, I had a few minutes to spare and picked up an actual hard-copy version of the AJC. Glad I did, otherwise I might have missed the bricks-and-mortar-bashing guest editorial by Atlanta blogger, Leonard Witt, the Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University, a member of Atlanta Media Bloggers and chief blogger at the excellent PJNET.

Witt is trying hard to keep the faith in Ye 'Olde AJC. Why this too really needs to happen is also beyond me, but he goes way out on a limb and says:

Thanks to inexpensive digital publishing tools, the public has found its voice and is demanding to be heard. If the AJC integrates its journalism expertise and vast resources into this new bottom-up model, it will thrive, while improving the reach, depth and quality of journalism it cooperatively produces with its audience.

The movement toward community journalism has begun, and every day the Journal-Constitution waits, the further it falls behind the curve.

Full editorial here.

Such reasoning assumes that the AJC is not quite to the critical, Terry Schiavo/pull-the-plug NOW state of utter vegetation, and can (should?) be resuscitated. The clock is ticking though - loudly. At what point will newspapers/Big Media have to pull-in Congressional assistance in a last-gasp effort to save their own dinosaur-ass? Believe me, droves of droning lawyers are likely hard at work already.

And here's your Moment Of Real Deal, lovies...