Atlanta Jewish Times High Holiday Appeal
AJT Publisher-Owner Michael Morris asks readers to consider subscribing to help the paper nearing its centennial survive into the next generation.
Michael A. Morris is the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times.
L’Shana Tova. My wish is a happy and healthy new year from my family to yours. I will not take up much of your time during the holidays, but I do want to ask you for a small amount of consideration.
The Atlanta Jewish Times/Southern Israelite is in its 95th year of publication. We all remember the Vida Goldgar years; many of us still remember the Adolph Rosenberg years. Those publishers take us all the way back to the 1940s. Through the decades, your newspaper has relied on both advertising and subscriptions to survive. At its peak, the Atlanta Jewish Times had over 20 employees. Today, the AJT has eight full-time employees and a couple of part-time ones; we are lean and efficient. At its peak, payroll was the largest expense. Today, printing, paper and distribution are our largest expenses. To keep things in perspective, today our revenue is considerably less than 50 percent of what it was at our peak, yet our mission is no less important, and the number of readers has more than doubled.
The AJT needs your consideration. I hope you will think about keeping the paper going for this upcoming year, even for the next generation. You may be picking the paper up for free at your local bagel shop or synagogue; you may be reading the paper for free online; you may be receiving a free copy of the paper direct to your mailbox. Your free paper is not free. Our freelance writers and photojournalists are not free. Our few employees are not volunteers (only me). Printing, distribution, uploading to the internet and hosting are not free commodities.
If you can afford a subscription at $65 a year, please take the time to do so. If only 1,000 more of our regular readers pay for a subscription, that will cover approximately 5 percent of our yearly budget, and the paper will be that much closer to break-even. The AJT will not survive into the next generation without its readers making their contribution and becoming stakeholders. For our mission of keeping Jewish Atlanta connected and disseminating important news to and for the Jewish community of Atlanta, you can make a meaningful difference with $65. Please consider making a meaningful difference.
I hope for you and your family, an easy fast and G’mar Tov.
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