Merger
Cox Enterprises bought the Constitution in June 1950, bringing both newspapers under one ownership and combining sales and administrative offices. Separate newsrooms were kept until 1982, though even after the newsrooms were combined, both papers continued to be published. The Journal, an afternoon paper, led the morning Constitution until the 1970s, when afternoon papers began to fall out of favor with subscribers. In November 2001, the two papers, which were once fierce competitors, merged to produce one daily morning paper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The two papers had published a combined edition on weekends and holidays for years.
Prior to the merger, both papers had planned to start TV stations: WSB-TV 8 for the Journal, and WCON-TV 2 for the Constitution. Only WSB actually got on the air (making it the first TV station in the South), moving from channel 8 to WCON's allotment on channel 2 in 1951 to avoid TV interference from a nearby channel 9. (WROM-TV since moved, leaving WGTV on 8, after it was also used by WLWA-TV, now WXIA-TV 11.) This was also necessary to satisfy Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules preventing the excessive concentration of media ownership, preventing the combined paper from running two stations.
In 1989, Bill Dedman received the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for "The Color of Money," his expose on racial discrimination in mortgage lending, or redlining, by Atlanta banks. The newspapers' editor, Bill Kovach, had resigned in November 1988 after the stories on banks and others had ruffled feathers in Atlanta. (see Anne Cox Chambers).
In 1993, Mike Toner received the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for "When Bugs Fight Back," his series about organisms and their resistance to antibiotics and pesticides.
Julia Wallace was named the first female editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2002. In 2005 she was named Editor of the Year in 2005 by Editor and Publisher magazine.
Mike Luckovich again won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial cartooning in 2006, an award he had received in 1995 under The Atlanta Constitution banner.
Read more about this topic: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution