It is the one of the Big Easy's Big Icons. It is synonymous with a bowl of hot Gumbo & cold oyster. It goes with the morning cup of coffee and a plate of beignets from Cafe Du Monde. It is the newspaper known as the Times Picayune. It has brought the news of the region and the world to the fingertips of everyone in South Louisiana. It's 154 year heritage has delivered and endless number of timeless headlines. It survived the storm "Katrina" and helped reinforced the levees by holding those responsible for not maintain them. It could live on forever.
Sadly, just not in the form that it has endured for well over a century. Fine journalism is giving way to overhead. The presses are being slowed because of the bottom line. Circulation of one the finest newspapers in the country is being curtailed because of budget cuts. I knew the media industry was facing tough times but never did I think an institution like the TP would be affected. Gone are the daily editions in the fall of 2012. And with it a line of quality people being shown the door.
I hope that this is just a bad dream and we all will awake from it. But in my heart, this has the feeling of a great entity coming to an end. To all of my friends and peer with the TP, we are competitors but we are journalists first. We stand by your side in this dark time and hope that the light will shine through.
1 comment:
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