Who needs a daily paper?

May 24, 2012 by

I just posted this at First Draft and don’t feel like tidying it up for local consumption. I’d rather just let ‘er rip:

New Orleans does, that’s who. I was off the grid when the news started bubbling on the tweeter tube so I learned about the treachery, malakatude and douchebaggery of the suits at Newhouse from A right here on lil’ ole First Draft. My twitter and facebook feeds are on fire with the news plus the Gambit’s estimable editor, Kevin Allman, has posted a memo sent to staff by the retiring publisher and NOLA nob, Ashton Phelps:

The story, which can be accessed through this link, details the formation of NOLA Media Group, a digitally focused company that will launch this fall and that will develop new and innovative ways to deliver news and information to the company’s online and mobile readers. NOLA Media Group will be led by Ricky Mathews. Also this fall, The Times-Picayune will begin publishing a more robust newspaper on a reduced schedule of Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays only.

More robust? With 1/3 of the staff fired? This is known in the reality based community as blowing smoke up one’s ass.  One of the many appalling things about this story is that NOLA.com is such a horrible web site. It’s ugly, items are thrown on the net without regard to importance and it’s very hard to search internally, I often have to consult with Mr. Google to find anything therein. In short, NOLA.com is user hostile as well as loaded with hateful and racist comments from its users. Some replacement.

The primary reason that New Orleans needs a daily paper is that it’s such a fucking great news town. The Picayune story is just one of the big headlines today. Here’s my favorite: Archie Jefferson, the brother of imprisoned ex-Congressman Dollar Bill is suspected of murdering his wife and got involved in  a brawl at her funeral. You cannot make this shit up, y’all. Oh yeah, our shiny headed fool of a former Mayor, Ray Nagin, seems to be under investigation and at least one of his former minions has rolled.

You may have noticed that the previous 2 links are to WWL-TV news. We’re lucky in New Orleans that the local teevee news is pretty darn good: WWL is the leader of the pack but WVUE and WDSU also have good news teams. We’re also blessed with an excellent weekly in the Gambit and a fine online news site, The Lens but none of them can replace a daily paper. Despite all my carping and teasing over the the years, the Picayune is a good newspaper; especially its metro news team under Metro Editor and crack investigative reporter, Gordon Russell. I’m acquainted with Gordon and he’s been known to bust my chops for referring to the paper as the Times-Pravda for its slanted political coverage. I remain unrepentant about that but I’m very sorry that outside ownership is about to decimate a vital local institution.

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