Appearing on a two-hour local cable-access television show is pretty daunting. But it’s a great way to learn what your newspaper readers in North Georgia want – and don’t want.
What I learned was that there is nothing magical about the invisible line that divides Tennessee from Georgia, or Tennessee from Alabama for that matter. It’s a state line, not the Berlin Wall.
Caller after caller on UCTV’s “Night Talk” program implored me to do away with the North Georgia front page and give them the “Chattanooga paper.” Even the show’s host, Judy O’Neal, executive producer of the Fort Oglethorpe station, was surprised.
As a result of those calls, and an earlier reader survey, we are strongly considering the elimination of the North Georgia edition. Instead, we want to give you one edition – the best one we can craft – that features the best stories of the day on A1, regardless of the state where they originated.
Our news coverage of North Georgia will not decrease; on the contrary, we plan to beef it up. The best North Georgia stories will go on A1; the rest will be found on the B1 Metro cover or inside the B section. In fact, we plan to do a better job covering our entire region.