Daily newspapers might be on the decline but don’t count them out yet. As the New Orleans Saints’ season and Super Bowl victory prove, when there’s historic news there’s still a demand for a real, hard, paper copy of the hometown daily.
Consider that the day after the Super Bowl, New Orleans’ Times-Picayune printed 150,000 extra copies—six times more than normal—and sold out. The Advocate, meanwhile, printed an additional 52,000 copies, roughly 50% more than usual. They, too, sold out.
It’s a boon the papers couldn’t have expected just a few months ago, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. With circulation—and, therefore, ads—on the decline, both papers have been forced to shrink their page sizes, cut their budgets and offer buyouts to longtime writers.
How long the uptick will last remains to be seen. But for The Times-Picayune, at least, the increased demand has been gradually building since late last year, about the time the Saints secured a spot in the playoffs. Though the correlation between the two events might be purely coincidental, anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise.
At Benny’s B-Quik convenience store on Perkins Road, manager Larry Barrios doubled his daily order of Picayunes from 25 to 50 in early January when he noticed he was suddenly selling out. He ordered 350 of the post-Super Bowl edition and sold out of those, too. He plans to continue carrying twice as many of the New Orleans papers as usual through February, and then he’ll see what happens. Other retailers tell similar stories.
What’s interesting about the demand for so many New Orleans newspapers in Baton Rouge—and elsewhere around the state, for that matter—is that it illustrates that Louisiana isn’t as divided as it often seems. There are a lot of New Orleans transplants living here who want to read about what’s going on in the Crescent City. There are lots of locals here with family in New Orleans, and they want that city’s news, too. Then there are just folks who love the state’s professional football team and are basking in the glow of its triumph.
We know all this, of course, but the demand here for The Times-Picayune illustrates it in a concrete way—just as the record-breaking sales of Saints merchandise did in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.
But the brisk sale of newspapers—not only The Times-Picayune but also The Advocate—underscores our intrinsic need for a tangible copy of the historic record when history matters. At the end of the day, we wanted something we could touch and feel and keep in the scrapbook for posterity, and laser-printed versions of Web pages just don’t do the trick.
Driven by frustration
While Saints stories have been dominating the local news, the recall of two million Toyotas has been one of the biggest national stories, and a lot of Toyota dealers haven’t liked the way the media is covering it.
Consider that 173 dealers in five Southern states pulled their ads from ABC affiliates in retribution for what they called the “excessive reporting” by ABC News on the Toyota recall.
Fortunately for local TV stations, Louisiana Toyota dealers haven’t taken a similar course of action, though some have made clear to local newsrooms their displeasure with how the national media have handled the story.
Price LeBlanc General Manager Brent LeBlanc says he has been “proactive” in letting local stations know that the national media have reported inaccuracies in covering the story. And Victor Howell at Team Toyota says there have been “frustrations” that only part of the story was getting out.
So far, no one has threatened to pull any ads, and All Star Automotive Group’s Matt McKay says local coverage of the issue overall has been “more than fair.”
Still, you can be sure local newsrooms are aware of what’s at stake, and they’re handling this one with care.
WBRZ, WAFB lose reporters
The local TV market lost two talented, young reporters this month. Dana Hackett, who has been a reporter at WBRZ-TV for more than two years, left the ABC affiliate on Feb. 12 to take a position with the Louisiana Lottery Corp. as senior communications specialist. In her new job, Hackett will be fielding media inquiries and heading up the Lottery’s new online social-networking push.
The day before Hackett signed off, Caroline Moses filed her last report for WAFB-TV. She left the CBS affiliate after three years to take an investigative reporting job with WSMV-TV, the NBC station in Nashville, Tenn.
