Chowpapi

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Bring Me The Head Of Jim Amoss. Times-Picayune Editor Is Now Laughing Stock Of New Orleans

4 Comments June 14, 2012 – 12:46 am | Permalink |  Print This Post |

By now we’re all aware that New Orleans daily paper; The Times-Picayune, is going to a 3 day a week schedule sometime this Fall. The narrative of rebirth and rejuvenation that America’s greatest city has enjoyed post-Katrina has ended.

New Orleans is in a tail spin.

Media group Advance Publications initiated a vicious blood-letting at the Times-Pic that saw two hundred employees lose their job. Many of these workers were award winning journalists who had shepherded the city through the hard times of post-Katrina rebirth.

Most laughable though is the quote from editor Jim Amoss who had this to say “We’re committed to being the journalistic watchdog of our communities. We’re committed to the high quality of journalism our readers have come to expect from us, produced by a formidable news staff.”

Take a shower after you say that Amoss. Your dog and pony show might go over in some hick backwater but not in cosmopolitan New Orleans.

Here’s the real absurdity of the whole affair though. According to published reports the Times-Picayune pulled in 64.7 million in print revenue vs 5.7 million via the web in 2011.

I’m dumbfounded.

The one person whom I felt was sacrosanct at the newspaper was Nell Nolan, the doyenne of the society page.

Terminated.

Was there severance pay for the terminated? Yes, 1.5 weeks for each year served. That is correct. Shameful.

A great pleasure that tens of thousands of New Orleanians enjoyed each morning was a cup of cafe au lait or chicory and the Times-Picayune spread across their lap at a local coffee shop.

No more.

The Times-Picayune has been a daily newspaper since 1837. That’s 175 years of continuous publication. And now it’s dead.

RIP

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