Atlanta Journal-Constitution president and publisher Andrew Morse will leave the Georgia newspaper next month, ending a three-year term that saw him try to bring the state’s flagship publication into the modern age by bolstering its digital subscriptions and ending its print edition.
Morse shared the news in a staff meeting on Monday. Paul Curran, an executive at parent company Cox Enterprises’ Cox Media, will succeed Morse as president and publisher at the end of June.
“The AJC is essential to how Atlanta and the Southeast stay informed, engaged, and connected,” Curran said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to help advance Cox’s longstanding commitment to serving our communities through balanced, independent journalism. As we continue the AJC’s digital transformation, my priority will be empowering our journalists and evolving our products so even more readers turn to us for trusted news and understanding.”
Morse joined the newspaper in 2023, setting a goal to grow the Journal-Constitution’s digital subscriber base from 53,000 to roughly 500,000 by the end of 2026. The paper ended its print edition at the end of last year, and it currently has just over 100,000 digital subscribers, according to NPR.
“We set a very ambitious goal,” Morse told NPR. “It’s still very achievable based on the size of this market and the pace of our growth. What’s changed is the timing.”
Morse said he decided to step down to spend more time with his New York-based family, pointing to three years of commuting up the East Coast. “I needed to make a difficult personal decision to make a change,” he told NPR.
“We have been on a great journey with the AJC … trying to transform a really proud, storied daily newspaper into a modern media company,” Morse added. “The decision for me is really bittersweet.”
Cox Enterprises CEO Alex Taylor noted in another statement that the Journal-Constitution remains “an integral part of Atlanta’s story.”
“Good journalism makes us stronger as a community by holding public leaders accountable and helping all of us make sense of a changing world,” he said. “We embrace our responsibility to carry that legacy forward and invest in the next generation of journalists and readers, and we know Paul shares this commitment.”
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