Savannah Morning Blues

My first story for the Savannah Morning News ran on August 23rd, 2019. Almost five years to the day, I turned my back on a job that I loved because Gannett didn’t love me back.

On the morning of Friday, August 2nd I sat down at the desk in my shared office and opened my email. Alongside the usual gaggle of press releases and spam was a message from my editor. Not thinking too much about it, I opened and read it, and my heart sunk: All freelance assignments were being put on “pause,” it said, and the future for all of us writers was anything but clear.

But the “pause” was about more than just a recalibration. In spite of the fact that I’d pitched stories several weeks out, and had even completed interviews for six (!) pieces, there was no guarantee that they would ever see the light of day. Even the article I was due to turn in later that day, one that was within hours of completion, was part of the so-called “pause.”

I was angry and hurt, but I can’t say that I was necessarily surprised. The year previous it had been anything but smooth working for the paper, and I’d already noticed that the Savannah Morning News had started running more stories by out-of-town writers who were opining about The Hostess City, in spite of their Augusta or Atlanta addresses.

By the following Friday, there were still no answers, so I gave an ultimatum: Get back to me by Tuesday the 13th, or I’m taking my stories elsewhere. In a surprise to no one who knows how the paper operates, I didn’t receive a follow up until Wednesday, a day late, where I was told that I’d be given one story a week (I’d been doing 3-4/week).

Thanks, but no thanks.

The Return of Chick-Fil-A’s Pimento Sandwich Isn’t News

A few minutes before I wrote this, I visited the entertainment section on the Savannah Morning News website, one of the sections I used to write for. Amongst the top stories were pieces about a product collaboration between Coca-Cola and Oreo, the return of Pumpkin Spice Lattes to Starbucks, the terror attack at a European Taylor Swift concert, Chick-Fil-A’s pimento cheese sandwich and banana milkshake, and new collectible cups coming to McDonald’s.

Is that what you really want to read about in your local paper?

Although I’m disappointed in what happened at the Savannah Morning News, I have no interest in being a corporate shill. And as a longtime subscriber to the paper myself, I have even less interest in reading what is, frankly, free advertising for billion dollar corporations. I’m a lifelong newspaper guy, what’s happening over there pisses me off. They actually have a lot of talented writers on staff, and could be great. But they’re owned by Gannett, who owns USA Today, and they apparently have other priorities.

[A composite image of five recent headlines in the Savannah Morning News’ Entertainment section, as observed on August 29th, 2024]

Fortunately, however, SMN isn’t even close to the only game in town anymore. Even with the recent closure of Connect Savannah, we’ve still got The Savannahian, The Current, Savannah Agenda, and now the Hostess City Saint. For about as much as it will cost you to subscribe to Savannah’s so-called “newspaper of record,” you can subscribe to at least a couple of these truly local publications.

These alternative news sources are just vanity projects, however: They’re operated by some of the most talented writers you’ll find in Savannah. The Savannahian, for example, is run by Jim Morekis, Connect Savannah’s longtime Editor-in-Chief, and includes regular great work by co-founder Sean Kelly and contributors such as Kristy Edenfield. 2017 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting finalist Margaret Coker, Savannah Morning News’ former head Susan Catron, and respected environmental reporter Mary Landers are all at The Current. Eric Curl runs Savannah Agenda, a news site that he, too, began after leaving the Savannah Morning News. And as for the Saint, Josephine Johnson and I have written and published hundreds of stories in the culture sphere, all relating to Savannah and the surrounding region.

In the twelve days between the “pause” and deciding to move on from the Savannah Morning News, I had a lot of time to think about what it means to be a journalist covering this town. Writing about Chick-Fil-A and Oreos ain’t it. I believe that to truly do a service to locals, local topics need to be the primary focus. And that’s what we intend to do with the Hostess City Saint.

[Savannah Agenda, The Savannahian, and The Current are all alternatives to the Savannah Morning News, and they’re operated by locals instead of a media giant]

Support Local Journalism

As noted above, there are a lot of talented writers at the Savannah Morning News. My cohort in the new alt-weekly venture Josephine Johnson is still freelancing there, and I’ve always been appreciative of the work that Chris Berinato does covering music, and how Meagan Pusser covers art. I also really like reading Joseph Schwartzburt’s stories. Bill Dawers is a local legend, and Rich Burkhart takes great photos. I’m not here to trash any of these local reporters’ work.

But I’m not going to pretend that the Savannah Morning News is still a good paper, and that’s not just because I no longer work there. When local jobs are cut by distant corporate goons who most of us have never met, that’s a problem. When the line between news and advertising is blurred, that’s a problem too.

Instead, I’m going to be moving my money elsewhere, and I encourage you to do the same. Right now I pay $9.99/month for digital-only access to the newspaper. I’ll be taking that ten bucks and spreading between The Current and Savannah Agenda (I already subscribe to the Savannahian). Between those three and the Hostess City Saint, there are plenty of places where you can get real local news. It might mean you miss out on learning about the latest corporate ploy to make billionaires even richer, but at least you’ll actually know what’s going on in this town, from the people who live here.

You can find The Savannahian, The Current, and Savannah Agenda at https://www.thesavannahian.com/, https://thecurrentga.org/, and https://savannahagenda.com/ respectively. Subscribe to them (and to us)!