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Thursday is by far the best day to be a newspaper reader in Atlanta.  It’s the day when the new Creative Loafing comes out, which, page for page, is the best written newspaper in Georgia.  It’s also the best day to get the Atlanta Constitution.

Everyone in a one paper town criticizes their paper, and the Constitution certainly  deserves its fair share, but on Thursdays, it’s a paper worth reading.  Why? It’s the day with the highest signal to noise ratio.  First, the Access Atlanta section isn’t bad.  It’s no substitute for the Atlanta Performs website or even Atlanta Planit, but it’s certainly a pretty good guide to upcoming events.  If you’re a tourist, it’s really good stuff.

Next, it’s the day when the local sections come out.  These sections let smaller organizations get media coverage that matters locally but would be lost on the region and they do tackle some weighty local issues.  Ben Smith continues to do yeoman’s work in Gwinnett after covering Dekalb for years.  It’s also a day when they actually publish theatre reviews!  Actual reviews!  If publish three reviews of shows a week, the paper would gain popularity.  Regrettably, the editors there don’t always see the desire for quality theatrical reviews.

The best thing however, is that Jay Bookman’s columns are on Thursdays.  He’s the best columnist the paper has had since Marilyn Geewax moved to Washington.  He’s thoughtful, practical, and engaged.  Hopefully the paper is grooming him either to become the head of the Editorial Page or even better, to become the Editor-in-Chief.  Either way, his columns are worth reading as, on this day, is the whole paper.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 3:13 am and is filed under ATL Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.