Former AJC biz editor, now auto editor, also departing paper

Rob Douthit, the auto editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the paper’s former business editor, confirmed to Talking Biz News on Tuesday that he is taking the paper’s buyout offer and leaving next month.

Douthit writes and edits weekly auto reviews and trend stories about the automotive industry. Douthit also leads coverage of the metro Atlanta area’s fast-growing northern and western communities, including Cobb County, northern Fulton County and Forsyth County.

He served as a business editor for the Journal-Constitution, and led coverage of Atlanta’s major corporations such as Coca-Cola, Home Depot and Southern Co. He has also been responsible for the Journal-Constitution’s national business coverage.

Douthit previously served as the business editor of The Record of North Jersey, where he led business coverage of an area that included metro New York. Before that, he was business editor of the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina, where he also served as a correspondent for a local Fox TV station and hosted a weekly business news radio show.

Douthit is a member of the Unity Journalists organization, the Southeastern Automotive Media Organization and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. He graduated from Radford (Va.) University in 1989.Â