Aug 13, 201209:31 AM
The Editor's Room
Weekly Commentary with New Orleans Magazine’s Errol Laborde
The Times-Picayune Fiasco: The Newhouses Find a City They Believe In—Baton Rouge
Having triggered its effort to decrease the quantity and quality of journalism in New Orleans, the Newhouse clan has decided to enhance one Louisiana media market—Baton Rouge. A report published last Friday in the Baton Rouge Business Report says that NOLA Media Group, is “expanding its online product into the Baton Rouge market.”
Several weeks ago, Baton Rouge’s The Advocate announced that it would expand into the New Orleans market once the Newhouses, as threatened, reduced the circulation of the Times-Picayune to three times a week beginning in October.
According to the Business Report article written by Stephanie Riegel, a former New Orleans journalist who now edits the Baton Rouge business paper: Officials with NOLA Media Group did not return calls seeking comment, but sources familiar with the plan say the company is staffing up locally and will be increasing its online coverage of Baton Rouge news, sports and politics. A post on the company's website says as much.
An online ad for a "managing producer, Baton Rouge," says, "This is an entrepreneurial effort to significantly expand our footprint in a growing and vibrant city that offers a journalistically compelling mix of politics, sports and breaking news. You will step in as a main player in launching this digitally focused coverage effort."
Note to Newhouses: We’re glad you think that Baton Rouge is a “growing and vibrant city” which underscores the point made by a group of New Orleanians who wrote to you a few weeks ago urging you to sell: “If your family does not believe in the future of this great city and its capacity to support a daily newspaper, it is only fair to allow us to find someone who does.”
According to Riegel: Experts say it's a shrewd move, especially since the media group has little digital competition in the Baton Rouge market. However, the company faces two challenges. First, it needs to staff up adequately and provide quality journalism, according to Bob Ritter, professional in residence at the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication. “I also think they will have to develop their brand on a more statewide basis,” says Ritter, a former editor of The Denver Post. “I think that will be the real trick.”
It has taken the genius of the Newhouses to diminish the esteem once had for a beloved newspaper in its hometown and to make the Baton Rouge Advocate seem heroic. Once it starts publishing daily in New Orleans, The Advocate will discover that no one can touch this city not only for growth and vibrancy, but for its resilience from setbacks.
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Krewe: The Early New Orleans Carnival- Comus to Zulu by Errol Laborde is available at all area bookstores. Books can also be ordered via E- mail at gdkrewe@aol.com or (504- 895-2266)
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Errol Laborde holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of New Orleans and is the editor-in-chief of Renaissance Publishing. In that capacity he serves as editor/associate publisher of 
Reader Comments:
Erroll Laborde's long established credibility as a writer and observer pays off again. I don't always agree with him (this time I certainly do)but he never fails to educate or provoke me to think about his persepective.
This is all an attempt to diminish non-republican access to news and information. Wonder how much money Jindal has gotten from them. No one on this side of Lake Ponchartrain should give Newhouse gang a coppercent
No one would seriously suggest that a newspaper doesn't need to be self-supporting, but there's a vast difference between that and caring only about the money and virtually nothing about good journalism. This is a fair description of Newhouse, and the fact that he, especially with his record, is interested in putting out a paper in Baton Rouge, means almost nothing. Or maybe less than nothing, since it's purpose, like most of what passes for journalism in the U.S. today, will be to amuse, confuse and distract us from what is really going on.
When is the last time The Times-Picayune was considered journalism? 1974?
Way to throw Baton Rouge under the bus because this company mistreated or underestimated New Orleans. There is enough bad blood between the two great cities without you adding fuel to the fire. We are all sons and daughters of Louisiana!
The Advocate is easy to navigate, covers the whole state, the nation, and the world, and most of all it is dependable. You only have to move out of state (or to New Orleans or Shreveport or Alexandria) to appreciate what a good newspaper it is.
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