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 ...
Yes, it’s truly a picayune needed word...............
Or to return to print, but in Spanish...
Learn to code.
I used to think the same and it was once true. But now all the papers just publish whatever AP and the NY Times tell them too, and think whatever the democrats tell them to. There are hardly any newspapers where this isn't the case anymore. So what difference does it make?
You do wonder if newspapers as we have known them, have a long term future.
Our local paper is hanging on. The original owners sold it 20 years ago or so. But it is shrinking—fewer pages and the pages are smaller. Now only published 6 days a week and I’m wondering how much longer before it’s cut to three days a week. More tellingly, the want ads have shrunk to almost nothing. My wife likes to read the paper—that’s why we still subscribe. I read the comics and do a sudoku and that’s about it for me.
The numbers of eyeballs on a paper versus online sites and the cost of placing a print classified or obituary were examined exhaustively over ten years ago.
Look at the McClatchy Watch website if its still up, or Abb’s old dinosaur media deathwatch threads on this site.
Mathematically the business model is no longer tenable long term and there is nothing recent about that analysis.
The TP may have pensions with cash and investments to raid, and they may have tax losses that can be used to offset other income.
There is a city next to where I live, Westfield MA. At one point in the late 1800s they produced the best buggy whips built in the US. They also produced some pretty fine “Connecticut Valley shade” cigar wrappers. It was a hopping place.
Not so much any more.
Wrappers are just as good from the DR. And very few people use buggy whips any more.
Things change in the world. What would have been considered a fine, stable source of employment for 100 years can disappear overnight.
Newspapers are one of those things. They were fine for a long time. But not so much anymore. Our local paper is good for coupons; but all of their stories are ripped from twitter feeds—not even the AP any more.
Yep, just ask former employees of Polaroid and Kodak................
Learn to code?
Back in the 60s I tended bar part time and some of the most popular drinks then are barely known today.
7 & 7, Jack and Coke, WPLJ; if these are known to you, you are a plugger.
Lots of things mostly digital. Things like the website, all of archives, the subscription and advertisers info. Also, depends on if they owned their building or was it leased.
I do think firing all of reporters was dumb.
I know the first two..........
Hi.
The consolidation of the print industry continues.
Even the weeklies will eventually have revenue problems and a decline in profits (and property value).
On the other hand, the Alternative weeklies have stabilized after adapting to the internet and cutting costs (I.e. print).
“Good or bad?”
5.56mm
Even the grocery store tabloids are having problems................
The Advocate is a long-established paper in Baton Rouge; they began publishing a New Orleans edition in 2012, sensing that the Times-Picayune was vulnerable and management wasn’t interested in putting more money in the operation. As I recall, the T-P ceased daily print publication several years ago, and the hand-writing was on the wall.
Now, the Advocate is the only daily serving the two largest cities in Louisiana with a lean editorial operation. They might be able to make a go of it—guessing that Newhouse sold the T-P for a fire sale price.
Learn to code.
The song was way better than the wine, but like all alcohol, the more you drank, you seemed not to mind the taste:)
Can you guess his political affiliation?
Think hard!!
You can get it!!!
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