Richard Warner Online

Atlanta’s alternative weekly Creative Loafing files for bankruptcy. Major cuts at the AJC. And look for Atlanta’s local TV stations’ headcounts to get whacked. The combination of declining auto dealership and retail advertising has put local media past the tipping point where the old business model is no longer sustainable and Internet advertising hasn’t begun to make up the difference. For viewers, this means seeing fewer anchors, younger reporters who shoot their own new stories, fewer stories that require deeper preparation and understanding, and more product placement like the ridiculous oversized McDonald’s french fry prop on Channel 46’s sportscasts. Media as it existed in the ’60s and ’70s is gone. Competitive newspapers have folded; thanks to deregulation, local news on the radio is all but gone except one station in a market, such as WSB AM; TV stations are about to go through a radical restructuring that will impact who you see and the quality of what’s produced. The perfect storm in 2009: recession, no political advertising, no Olympics and the conversion to digital TV in February.