New Orleans Times-Picayune To Publish Only Three Days A Week
In yet another sign of the ongoing contraction of the newspaper industry, The New Orleans Times-Picayune will only be producing a print newspaper three days a week beginning later this year:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans’ daily newspaper, The Times-Picayune, will switch to publishing three days a week starting in the fall and plans to increase its focus on online news.
The 175-year-old paper announced Thursday the formation of a new company — NOLA Media Group — which includes The Times-Picayune and its NOLA.com website affiliate.
The announcement said there will be unspecified staff reductions.
Times-Picayune publisher Ricky Mathews, who will be president of the new venture, said the changes were necessitated by upheaval in the newspaper industry.
Mathews said the newspaper will be home-delivered and sold in stores on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Short of actually closing down the print edition and going totally online, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer did in 2009, this is the most radical step any newspaper can take. In this case, though, it’s perhaps even more radical since, unlike Seattle where the Seattle Times still publishes a print edition, the Times-Picayune is the only major newspaper serving not only New Orleans, but a major portion of Southern Louisiana.
This won’t be the last city to see this happen.
I have fond memories of the Times-Picayune from when I lived in New Orleans. They were like Cassandra in that they revealed disaster and were ignored by all. Time after time they would expose mind-boggling corruption and… nothing happened.
I also remember the first issue I picked up. There on the front page was an article on a new Chef in one of the local restaurants. I can’t tell you how unusual this was twenty years ago. It’s hard to imagine in this era of celebrity chefs and cooking channels but back then it was so unusual that I actually read through the article twice, assuming that he had committed some crime or that the last chef at that restaurant had murdered someone and that was why this was considered news. The Times-Picayunes food reviews became my required reading from that point forward. They didn’t care about fancy, or location, or trendy. A Po’ Boy shop with the perfect oyster Po’ Boy was as important as what this new guy, Emeril Lagasse was doing now that he had left Commander’s Palace.