Atlanta Unfiltered

About the editor: Jim Walls

I’m an ink-stained wretch. Or a reporter’s editor. Or clunky and unpolished. More likely, all three and then some. I won’t even tell you what my reporters used to call me. Ask them if you run into them.

I’ve also been a journalist for 36 years, the last 28 at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, primarily as an editor. I ran the Gwinnett County bureau and the suburban, city and night desks at various times. I was privileged to work with a team of very talented investigative reporters for my last 12 years at the AJC.

When the newspaper trimmed its staff in 2008, I took a buyout and prepared to change careers. But plans changed as I watched the newspaper business implode along with the public service journalism that I devoted my career to. So I have created AtlantaUnfiltered.com to support and promote investigative journalism in Georgia.

Photo by Mike Schinkel

Links

A journalist’s work speaks for itself. Here are some of the AJC stories I supervised:

• A matter of life or death: A 2-year investigation of the death penalty in Georgia
• Dying in darkness: Preventable deaths in Georgia’s group homes
• Cotton bailout: How your tax dollars prop up big growers and squeeze the little guy
• Wired for waste: How Atlanta Public Schools burned through $70 million in federal technology funds
• Welcome to America: On abuses in federal programs to resettle refugees from war and persecution
• Selling Atlanta’s children: On child prostitution
• The Clarence Thomas you don’t know (3-day profile)

Honors and awards

Editors don’t generally get their names on journalism prizes. But here are a few awards won by projects that I supervised:

• Philip Meyer Journalism Award, National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (2nd place), 2007
• Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting (finalist), 2005
• Health Care Journalism Award, National Institute for Health Care Management, 2002
• Silver Gavel Award for public service, American Bar Association, 1994
• Silver Gavel Award for public service, State Bar of Georgia, 1994, 1999, 2001 Green Eyeshade Awards, investigative reporting, 2005
• Best of Cox Awards: — public service, 1999, 2002 — investigative reporting, 2001, 2005 — writer of the year, 2002
• Georgia Associated Press:
  • story of the year, 2002, 2007
  • public service, 1994, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2007
  • non-deadline reporting, 1998, 1999, 2008
  • eature writing, 2001
• Georgia Press Association:
  • community service, 1994, 1999, 2001, 2002
  • hard news writing, 1998, 1999
  • investigative reporting, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008

Resume

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

• Investigations editor (2007-08)
• Special projects editor (1996-2007)
• Assistant metro editor (1992-96)
• Suburban editor, city editor, acting metro editor (1988-92)
• Night city desk (1984-88)
• Gwinnett bureau chief (1984) Reporter, Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb county courts & government (1980-83)

Savannah News-Press

• reporter, state news editor (1977-80)

Globe Newspapers, Fairfax, Va.

• reporter & editor (1972-77, sandwiched around a 1-year gap when I took off to see America)

Education

• Graduated 1970, Annandale High School, Annandale, Va.