74 people are leaving the Atlanta Journal Constitution, in the latest round of buyouts. Among them, Evelyn Ortega, the paper’s print design manager for slightly more than 9 years. Before that, Evelyn worked a little over 3 years at the Augusta Chronicle and another 3 at the Miami Herald.
Art director Omar Vega is also leaving the paper – for a second time. He has been at the AJC almost 6 years. He previously worked as art director at the Asian Wall Street Journal and before that worked almost 6 years as a designer at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. He started out as a designer at the Hartford Courant.
The full list of names appeared in the news blog Creative Loafing, which also reports the paper eliminated its news art department, laying off the 4 remaining employees, and pink-slipped the entire news research staff, about 4 or 5 people.
It seems as though everyone is feeling these big cuts. I hope that print journalism is not dead but simply is going through a transitional phase.