Posted on 05/06/2019 8:11:18 AM PDT by Red Badger
The Newhouse family sold the 182-year-old daily The Times-Picayune and its website, nola.com, to a scrappy New Orleans competitor, and the entire staff is being laid off. That has stirred worries across the other papers in the family’s Advance Publications empire.
A total of 161 staff members are being laid off, according to a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) notice filed with the Louisiana Workforce Commission, which listed 65 reporter and editor jobs in the bloodbath.
John and Dathel Georges, the husband-and-wife team that owns the rival New Orleans Advocate, are buying The Times-Picayune from Newhouse’s Advance Local, which has owned it since 1962.
The Advocate plans to publish a seven-days-a-week paper using both brands on the masthead starting in early June and will merge both websites under nola.com.
“Could this happen to the Staten Island Advance, Jersey Journal or Star-Ledger?” asked one worried source, referring to metropolitan newspapers owned by the family that also owns the glitzy but struggling Condé Nast.
Randy Siegel, chief executive of Advance Local, said the company does not intend to sell any other papers. “This was a one-off,” Siegel told The Post. “We’re all terribly sad about the outcome.”
Stunned Times-Picayune staffers heard they were being laid off late Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Read about this over the weekend. What I can’t figure out is what assets were worth buying? They obviously didn’t want the staff, who now have 60 days to destroy the company and those cherished assets. Seems on the surface, a stupid move.
“Advocate” sounds very Gay and uber-left
Does New Orleans still have a red light district? The journalists could work there — they have relevant experience.
You do wonder if newspapers as we have known them, have a long term future.
Newspaper circulation for actual printed newspapers, is estimated to have declined by up to 50% in some cities since the year 2000. Along with those declines are declines in advertising revenues to the papers.’
Internet subscriptions have not come anywhere making up for the revenue losses due to circulation declines.
I wonder if many cities will simply not have newspapers in about 10 to 20 years.
Take your pick. Urinalists losing jobs is a good thing; but papers merging and consolidating is a bad thing.
>>>Read about this over the weekend. What I can’t figure out is what assets were worth buying?
They probably wanted the website. Other than that, it’s a market share ploy. The now have 100% of the market.
The function of news gathering and reporting will remain, the medium will change.
I lived in Picayune, Mississippi for a year and a half, about 50 miles from NOLA.
I remember reading a sci-fi novel back in the 60’s where the ‘news’ was delivered to a watch-like device on peoples’ arms, and they did all their mail and money transactions with it as well...... And I said to my teen-aged self, yeah, like THAT will ever happen!........................
Times-Picayune was barely functional, top-heavy in staff. The Advocate was a lean modern paper, actually providing a daily paper. Just a matter of time.
“I wonder if many cities will simply not have newspapers in about 10 to 20 years.”
I doubt it will take that long! I continue to marvel that they are not leaving the stage quicker when you read about their stunted circulation figures. It will take the Bezos types with money to burn, to keep them afloat for very much longer. With electronic media, the paper newspaper is an anachronism that is dying.
Nola.com - period.
The fact they were able to put their main newspaper competitor out of business at the same time was just a bonus.
My guess is they will absorb what equipment etc. they can, and will sell off all the properties.
We are becoming a paperless society, printing newspapers is slowly going the way of the horse and buggy.
As far as these papers, they will be replaced with online “self-reporting” Sports teams will send in their boxscores, town councils well send in the meeting minutes, citizens will send in their op-eds and opinions.
These so called journalists do not perform any real service worth a paycheck.
Learn to code.
If only there were a word to describe such a petty, insignificant action.
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