atlanta-journal-constitution

Is 'Campaign To Save Book Reviewing' Just About Saving Status Quo?

Emily · 04/30/07 11:40AM

If you're bookish, you might've heard about the lit imbroglio swirling around the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In the wake of similar reorganizations at the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, that paper has made a controversial decision to eliminate its book review section, along with the job of its books editor, Teresa Weaver. Maybe you got an email from a friend urging you to sign a petition to keep her employed, or someone hipped you to the read-in protest taking place in Atlanta this Thursday. Or maybe you read author Michael Connelly's impassioned essay about the important but foundering symbiosis between newspapers and reading culture. "My 10-year-old daughter's love of reading books is slowly leading her toward the newspaper sections that are spread every morning across the breakfast table," he says, asking, "Now where will new voices be discovered?" Well, Michael, maybe they'll be discovered by... blogs. Crazy, right?