"You're the hardest working man in show business!"

My legacy was sealed Tuesday, Sept. 18, 1990. That was the day I wrote  what would become the most famous headline in the history of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- previously separate but now combined newspapers that once published the writing of  such distinguished journalists as Joel Chandler Harris of Uncle Remus fame (1876-1900, reporter and associate editor of the Constitution); Henry Grady (regarded as the spokesman of The New South as editor of the Constitution in the 1880s); Ralph McGill (regarded as the Conscience of the South for his editorials opposing segregation as editor and then publisher of the Constitution [1942-1969); and Journal reporter Margaret Mitchell, (1900-1949), who wrote Gone With the Wind). The headline was It's Atlanta!. It heralded an announcement in Tokyo that Atlanta had  been awarded the 1996 Summer Olympics. The announcement half a world away was made at 9 a.m. in Atlanta, the same time three presses at 72 Marietta Street were scheduled to turn with the morning street edition of that day's Journal. All the presses turned by 9:03 a.m -- with the headline and story!  When an AJC truck with papers literally hot off those presses pulled up at Underground Atlanta a few minutes later, a crowd that had gathered for the announcement was still cheering. When people saw the truck, they rushed to it. When they saw the headline, they started buying uncut bundles of 40 papers. Soon, every bundle was sold.  Runners dispatched from the newspapers' offices to bring papers to Underground to sell to the crowd never made it there. Downtown workers still arriving at their offices stopped them and bought every one. It was like that all across the city and metro area. It's Atlanta! sold out in grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores ... everywhere! So many vendors started calling for more papers that newspaper executives called the press room and told them to add another 10,000 papers to the first edition run. It wasn't enough. The vendors kept calling, asking for more papers. The executives  called the press room again and said, add another 10,000. Even that wasn't enough! The vendors kept selling out. Realizing that It's Atlanta! was making the edition a collector's keepsake,  the executives  called the press room a third time. DON'T STOP THE PRESSES! they said, except to update editions. It's Atlanta, Editor Ron Martin would say later, "was a helluva marketable headline." I am proud to be its author.

Today, in retrospect, I view It's Atlanta! as not just as my legacy but my present. It represents my passion for words. Passion for words is something one managing editor I worked for called "fire in the belly." It didn't matter how strong your resume might be. For him to hire you, you had to have "fire in the belly." I'm older now than when I wrote It's Atlanta! But , the fire still burns.

NOTE: The photo at left was taken in March 2025 at the Visitor's Center in Centennial Olympic Park where an image of the It's Atlanta! front page was on display. The park, built for the Olympics, was a central gathering point during the Games, and remains a gathering spot today for big events in Atlanta. Commemorative bricks, which were sold for $35 before the Olympics, were used to pave the plaza and walkways of  the park. There are nearly 500,000 engraved bricks in the park, with names from around the world. I bought two bricks, one with our daughter's name and one with my father's name. I was in the park to visit those two bricks.

As I heard highly regarded former Journal Sports columnist Furman Bisher once say, "I've been around the track a few times." After an award-winning 35-year career at Cox Newspapers, many in senior editing positions, I retired from Cox in 2009 when my position was eliminated in a reorganization after the recession. Because I was still looking for mountains to climb, words to write, and stories to tell,  I created and grew Worldwide Editing  into a trusted partner for outsourced editorial services. That work has included magazine writing, partnering with three PR agencies, a business development organization (Metro Atlanta Chamber [MAC}), and being invited to Taiwan twice as an international journalist.  I've won awards at Cox when I helped several small Cox newspapers in East Texas win a combined award for regional reporting and another one  for media innovation (see next item). At Worldwide Editing, I helped MAC win a Phoenix Award for a metro exports report. Oh! And there was that headline that became a collector's item when Atlanta won the 1996 Olympics. Imagine what I can do for you!

Key positions at Cox Newspapers:

• News Editor, The Atlanta Journal
• News Editor, The Atlanta Constitution
• News Editor, the (combined) Journal -Constitution
• Managing Editor, Cox News Service

Before The Atlanta Olympics, Cox News Service was based at the Cox Washington Bureau. There was a reporter who covered the White House, but the bureau's primary purpose was for DC-based reporters from Cox-owned papers in Atlanta, West Palm Beach, Austin, and Dayton to  report on their states' congressional delegations. After the Olympics, Cox Newspapers moved its news service from the Washington Bureau to Atlanta. I was named the managing editor and tasked with creating a new vision for the news service. The goal was to leverage new technology to broaden its scope from congressional reporting to seamless shared reporting among all 44 Cox Newspapers in six states. Turning that vision into reality led to annual cost-savings to Cox of tens of thousands of dollars and the creation of a then-revolutionary Internet tool I championed and helped create. Sports departments used that tool for high school football reporting and Lifestyle departments used it for restaurant and other reviews. In both cases, it had applications in print across many different fonts and spacing and online. More than that, it generated  revenue through online games developed in conjunction with the tool. The Newspaper Association of America (now the News/Media Alliance) took notice, and granted it an innovation award. I'm still innovating, always looking for better, more impactful  ways to tell a story in print, digital and other formats.

Telling a good story starts with interviewing skills I learned as a working journalist. An example is a  story I wrote about an off -the-grid olive and almond farmer in Spain who I met when she lived briefly in Atlanta. Born in Paris, she traded her career in high heels for muddy boots to follow a new passion -- a love of the earth. The story was published in Mother Earth News and read by an author in the UK who was writing a book about off-beat farming, fishing, and the culture of food around the world. The UK writer contacted my friend in Spain, then visited her, and included her in the book. The story is a reminder that my writing has a global reach and touches lives in ways I can't always anticipate.

A now- funny story also shows my global reach. I was in northern Taiwan at a remote agricultural  research station during the time I was editing Phalaenopsis, an international journal dedicated to the orchid genus of the same name that is Taiwan's signature agricultural export. I had been looking for plant hunters in Asia who had visited isolated Phalaenopsis habitats in countries bordering the Pacific Rim. I previously found a person in Malaysia who told me a fascinating story of how he discovered and collected a species of Phalaenopsis growing on low branches hanging over a large swamp. He searched for the orchids by their fragrance as he waded through the murky waters. "When I felt something swim between my  legs, I prayed it was a fish," he told me. I wanted more stories like this! These natural habitats are becoming increasingly rare. The swamp has been filled in, for example, and is now a homestead. People who have visited Phalaenopsis habitats are also increasingly few and far between. So, I asked the station chief if he knew anyone who had visited these habitats. "I have just the person for you," he said with a big smile. "Come to my office. I will get you his name." My hopes soared as I tried to keep pace with him as he hurried down a hallway. Soon, he was rummaging through his desk. "Ahhhh. Here it is," he said, pulling from a side drawer an issue of the Phalaenopsis magazine I edited.  Pointing to my name, he said, "You find him! He will help you." My heart sank. I had come half way around the world to find ... me.

Sometimes I am asked if Worldwide Editing provides translation services. The short answer is no. The longer answer is that if you need a job I am writing or editing for you translated, I can connect you with a third-party translation service. This type of connection is what I like to think of as Worldwide Editing's ability to broaden its writing base to provide a full range of editorial services for any project. Need photography? I've got someone for you. Want a videographer? Ditto. Need  layout or design work or a graphic artist? I know professionals in those areas, too. 

Well, yes, I do have gray hair. Don't let that fool you, though.  It's a hard-earned badge of experience and thought leadership. I wear it with pride because it is my competitive advantage. As Oscar Wilde once famously said: 'With age comes wisdom'.  Let's talk about how I can put my writing and editing wisdom  to work for you.