My diary this morning, as so many are, was based on a story I read in this morning's Times-Picayune, New Orleans daily paper, celebrating its 175th year as a daily.
And its last, apparently.
Newhouse, a division of Advance Publications, the paper's owner, has confirmed the report by the New York Times' David Carr last night that the company will reduce publication of the T-P to three days a week. Similar memos went out to Advance/Newhouse papers the Mobile Press-Register and the Birmingham News.
Those of us in the city are stunned (the mood in the T-P newsroom is said to be funereal). While the paper gets a lot of mockery for its fluffy, feelgood "human interest" stories and its often-transparently conservative editorial slant, it is actually a fine daily, with a treasure hoard of well-deserved honors and awards to its credit.
Reporters like Rebecca Mowbray on the Business staff and Keith Spera covering the city's rich cultural heritage, along with courageous and insightful columnists like John Maginnis and Stephanie Grace, make the paper an irreplaceable source of information and perspective on the doings of our city and state.
Advance's plan to shift resources to the papers nola.com website, while good on (virtual) paper, almost certainly means a drastic drop in the political, cultural and general literacy of our city. Forbes' Micheline Maynard gives a chilling look at what a dailyless city is like, describing life in Ann Arbor, MI since Newhouse cut their paper back and pushed the digital alternative.
We talk a lot here about lame "dead tree" news outlets, how slow and conservative they can be, how the internet has empowered legions of "citizen journalists" who find the stories staid old papers never bother reporting.
But Advance/Newhouse's decision to cripple the T-P has made me, and a lot of other people here, realize just how valuable our daily is to us, and how much poorer we will be without it.
It is a very sad day in our city.
PS The Times-Picayune is the country's most widely-read city daily (greater readership per capita than any in the country). Don't think it can't happen to your rag, too.