Changes at Times-Picayune shake up Louisiana media landscape

When the corporate owners of New Orleans’ 175-year-old daily, The Times-Picayune, announced last month they were going to scale back publication to three days a week and gut the paper’s newsroom staff, it sent shock waves through a state that treasures its traditions and clings fiercely to its historic institutions. The news touched a nerve in Baton Rouge, too, with many wondering if The Advocate might move into the New Orleans market to fill the void—or if Baton Rouge’s daily might be in danger of facing a similar fate as New Orleans’. For now, Advocate Publisher David Manship says neither is an option. But ultimately, change will come to The Advocate, as it has to The Times-Picayune and a growing number of newspapers around the country. “The economics of the business are in permanent long-term decline, so it’s inevitable,” says Tom Baker, a New Jersey-based media consultant who was co-founder and general manager of The Wall Street Journal Online. “You just have to accept that in 10 or 15 years most cities won’t have a daily in the way that most cities have thought of one. It’s just the way it is.” One model that will likely emerge in place of the printed daily newspaper, for a while at least, is a hybrid approach like the one The Times-Picayune is attempting: where a scaled-back print schedule supplements a primary existence online. Read the complete cover story by Editor Stephanie Riegel in the new issue of Business Report here for an examination of the media landscape now and a vision of its future, conditioning the ways Louisianans receive their news.