This Just In: APC Blog

Bob Edwards, host of The Bob Edwards Show on XM Satellite Radio and Bob Edwards Weekend on Public Radio International, reminded the audience at tonight’s annual awards gala that our job as journalists is to ask the tough questions. Investigative reporters in our midst are expected, perhaps mandated, to take months or even years to uncover the truths and report them, he said. While “any idiot can blog,” he half-joked, announcing that he himself is guilty, he’s worried about the state of journalism. With the prevalence of blogs about the mundane and celebrities, “no one’s an editor, but everyone’s a journalist.” Are we giving the public what they need as opposed to what they want?

Edwards also alluded to a memoir he’s writing, and noted that one publisher wanted him to attack National Public Radio for letting him go in 2004. He says he never will because he believes in the mission and audience of public radio. The only negative about the medium is “it lives in mortal fear of being called `liberal,’” he said. But that label should be of no concern to true journalists, he added. “We use our eyes and ears to report what we see and hear, and people’s reactions be damned,” he told the crowd to applause. “That’s our job.”

Congratulations to the 2008 Journalists of the Year, Alan Judd and Andy Miller of the AJC, recognized tonight at the annual awards gala for their 2007 series on Georgia’s mental hospitals. Congratulations also to the JOY category winners: Janet Conley of The Daily Report, Kyra Phillips of CNN, Dana Fowle of WAGA-TV, Joe Ivansco of the AJC and Jason Bronis of The Associated Press. Atlanta and Georgia journalists from the AJC, Bloomberg News, Georgia Trend magazine, Marietta Daily Journal, News/Talk 750 WSB, Georgia Public Broadcasting and GPB Radio also picked up Green Eyeshade Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), which partnered with us for the evening. Thanks to SPJ, our sponsors, the gala committee and our featured speaker, Bob Edwards of XM Satellite Radio and Public Radio International, who enlightened us with his ideas on the state of journalism today (see above). It was a wonderful evening!

Unless you were in outer space, you have heard about the controversy surrounding this week’s The New Yorker magazine. It’s said any publicity is good publicity! Personally, I was more taken with Jill Lepore’s story on the evolution of children’s literature within public libraries.

On a local front, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently reported on its own internal changes, including laying off 189 employees and doing away with several sections. However, Metro and Sports will expand to include news from Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb and North Fulton counties, according to Publisher John Mellott. While this news isn’t as compelling as satire’s role in presidential politics, we look forward to following the continuing changes in our city’s major metro daily.

My same age and a lifelong news junkie like me, Chanda Taylor sounds like someone I would’ve been friends with. Unfortunately, I will never know the CNN producer and former WSB-TV news producer, who died last week of brain cancer. She also was a former president of AABJ, the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists. We at the Press Club extend our condolences to all those Ms. Taylor touched. Our industry is taking quite a hit these days, in more ways than one.