Atlanta jazz coverage may take another hit

The two main print media outlets in Atlanta, Creative Loafing and the AJC, have never really paid that much attention to the local jazz scene or the national acts that swing through town every so often. Before Creative Loafing started shrinking its music coverage (a necessary evil in this revenue-losing day and age, staff members reasoned), jazz popped up around festival time and whenever I could convince the music editor to let me write about something (which wasn't often). Historically, the AJC has done a better job. Adrianne Murchison recently published a short Q & A with Ramsey Lewis, and she's previously written about jazz clubs outside the perimeter. The AJC always has pictures or stories or something around festival time. But that's it.

And from the look of things, coverage at the AJC is about to get a whole lot worse. Creative Loafing is reporting on its Fresh Loaf blog that the AJC newsroom could lose as many as 80 reporters and editors in the next round of cuts, expected to happen sometime this coming week. With Creative Loafing in bankruptcy and the AJC losing its way, what will happen to coverage of the arts in the city?