Jun 25, 201210:22 AM
The Editor's Room
Weekly Commentary with New Orleans Magazine’s Errol Laborde
The Editor's Room Editors
The Times-Picayune Fiasco: A Q&A
Or, More Noise for Newhouse
Q. Why are so many people angry about what is happening to the T-P?
A. There are many reasons to hate this changes, including the loss of information flow. Here's one more: This is an embarrassment to the city. It makes us look and feel minor league. If the Newhouse gang thinks that what they are doing to New Orleans is the beginning of the future, than start the future elsewhere, do not do this to a city that has worked so hard to recover from a different disaster.
Q. Is there any hope?
A. There are four possibly positive outcomes. Unfortunately, the first two - the Newhouse gang changing their minds and going back to daily printing, or the company selling - would require miracles. That is a task for St. Jude.
Q. How about a new daily?
A. That's the third option and it would be close to the St. Jude department too. Dailies are like railroads, they are hard to start from scratch, challenged by the economy, and need infrastructure. I know at least one local media expert who thinks that a business model is possible for a tabloid-sized paper to survive maybe publishing five times week. The talent is certainly here and there would be widespread public support. Advertisers might welcome another opportunity. We suspect that the Newhouses are confident that a start-up daily could never survive and that is part of their equation. Wouldn't it be wonderful to prove them wrong?
Q. And the fourth option?
A. That would be for the Newhouses to give in a little and agree to publish five papers a week instead of the announced three. I think everyone could understand that, and there would be some goodwill. My vote would be to keep the Monday and Saturday issues; the first because of Saints day-after coverage, the other because of sports, weekend events and political coverage, but getting a vote is more than I can hope for.
Q. Hey, why don't we all just chill and let the Newhouse gang do to us what they want?
A. See the answer to the first question above. I would personally prefer to have root canal surgery.
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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:
Your Fourth Option is probably the original problem. The ONLY news you get on Monday is a re-hash of Saints coverage. The world could be collapsing and the headlines would cover the Saints.
boycott nola.com - the local TV websites can give us what the
national sites miss. If they want to make our future lacking,
we can make their future in New Orleans dissappear! Then maybe
they would consider some compromise.
Very good analysis, Errol. Any chance someone might publish a tabloid the other 4 days a week that the T-P doesn't? I can see from your analysis that Newhouse really does have us over a barrel. And, as pee-ons, we have very little recourse. It's almost like we really do need to pray to St. Jude. Newhouse holds all the cards and they're hanging tough. They seem quite determined to cram this down our throats. "You take whatever we give you, and you'd better be damn thankful for it." I read somewhere that they are segmenting their publications into discreet entities so that they can sell of in 3-5 years, and get the best tax consequences. By then, they will have killed the damn thing and lost all their faithful daily subscribers.
I agree with the Fourth Option. I don't understand by the Newhouses are bent and determined to downgrade what we have in New Orleans and that is loyalty to what we have. I wish they would pick on some other city and leave us along.
Could Gambit put out a daily newspaper?
Since the Newhouse family seems entrenched in their stupid decision, my hope is that either the Baton Rouge Advocate or the Houma Daily Courier become more involved in our local news and that they would start home delivery in the New Orleans area - am sure most of the current TP route guys would be delighted to go back to having 7 days of work a week. There are plenty of talented people available to cover the New Orleans local news and the Daily Courier carries a lot of New Orleans news anyway.
Nola.com is a visual mess and impossible to follow and search. I would rather get my toenails pulled without anesthesia than have to figure out what's going on in my own city from Nola.com. Just saying...
Actually, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has been buying newspapers recently. He bought the Bryan, Texas Eagle and the Waco, Texas paper. I think the T-P would be another great investment for him!
Errol, your answer to the first question is the heart of the matter. I love New Orleans and it is painful to realize that at least economically, we are in the minor leagues and have been for decades. If everyone would focus as much energy on rectifying the issues that keep this city (and state) back as they do on preserving a relic from the past, maybe there would be more options for us than the four you listed. Until then we may be able to maintain our position as a tourist and cultural destination, but real progress will continue to elude us.
There is another option: The New Orleans business community pull its support from NOLA.com and shift to The Advocate.
I believe this reorganization is just the prelude to something bigger that will happen to the Newhouse enterprises. There are two patriarchs to the family business, Donald and Samuel Newhouse and they are both in their eighties. Not long for the world I would say, relatively.
When the estate was passed to them there was a reckoning with the IRS which all large family estates have to contend with and that is the estate (death) tax. The family finally settled with the government, after haggling a dozen years or so, in 1990. S I Newhouse passed the baton to Donald and Samuel and it cost the family a lot of money.
This restructuring I believe is done for two reasons:
First, to package the divisions for quick liquidity when they have to pay the taxman. Future buyers would only buy intellectual and depreciated property. Newspapers on one pile, magazines on another pile, web businesses on another and so forth for easy inspection and buying.
Second, to drive the value of the separate divisions DOWN so they won't add up so high on the tax bill. The second was a major contention on the last tax dispute; the IRS added all the assets separately and came up with a $600Mn plus bill.
Newhouse fought and won; but they might not be so fortunate this time coming. With a digital presence there might be only ONE building holding everything; not many assets there.
Steve Newhouse is shrewd, it's all about the money and keeping it.
In a few years I think you will see a sell off of a few properties and the Times-Picayune will be one of them.
What core business will be left by 2015 will be unrecognizable.
Here's a nice article that further elaborates the dilemma that the Newhouse family is still faced with .....
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20101121/FREE/311219987
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