New York Times Co. Gives Up In Gwinnett   

As of Labor Day weekend, there's a $40 million newspaper plant sitting idle outside Atlanta, a monument to battles lost. After five years of struggle, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution made good on its promise that no latter-day General Sherman would make a grab for its wealthiest readers and the New York Times Co. closed its Gwinnett County-based Daily News.

Nearly 300 employees lost their jobs, although the Times says it has begun interviewing staffers for 87 openings at its 31 regional papers.

The Times Co. paid $88 million for the 27,500-circulation paper in 1987, attracted by its base in and near Atlanta's affluent suburbs. But the arrival of the Times seemed to give the Atlanta papers a renewed sense of mission: Crush 'em. The urban papers immediately launched a daily section for Gwinnett County, and when the Daily News launched a city edition last year and filled racks at the airport and downtown, Journal-Constitution staffers announced a "red alert" (see WJR, December 1991).

"It was like a monster born in their crib, so they needed to kill the baby before it ate them," says one former Daily News reporter. Adds Georgia State University professor Greg Lisby, "You go head-to-head with the big boys and girls downtown and you're going to get stomped."

Despite the competition, the News' circulation doubled under Times' ownership. By April of this year, it was selling 55,745 copies daily and 48,106 on Sunday. But while it fared better in Gwinnett County than either the morning Constitution or afternoon Journal, the two rivals combined were selling 11,000 more papers each week than the Daily News.

The Times says it bled money from the start, largely because of the recession, an initial $128 million investment and slower growth than expected in Gwinnett's population. Some staffers believe the paper couldn't keep up with the Journal-Constitution's subscription and advertising discounts. Whatever the case, Times executives say didn't foresee profits even well into the future.

Former Daily News Circulation Director Robert Bobber argues that a privately held company such as Cox Enterprises, which owns the Atlanta papers, can withstand short-term losses during competitive battles that stockholders of the publicly held Times Co. wouldn't allow. As part of the closing, the Daily News sold its assets to Cox for $60 million; Cox executives say they are under a confidentiality agreement and would not discuss details of the sale.

Five days before the paper folded, journalists from both camps held a wake at Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta. "I'll miss them," one Journal-Constitution reporter said. "I like to kick ass. Not that I didn't get mine kicked by them a few times. I don't know any good reporters who don't thrive on competition."

Manuel Maloof, the bar's owner, advised customers to be on the alert for an increase in sacred cows in the Atlanta papers' coverage. "As long as they're a monopoly," he said, "they'll get away with murder."

George Kennedy, a professor at the University of Missouri who has followed the battle, says what surprises him is that the deep pockets and patient investors at the Times didn't stay the course. "The Times doesn't have any history that I know of of leaping off cliffs."