New Orleans Clamors for Its Paper

New Orleans business and community leaders are pressing the publisher of their city's only daily newspaper to reverse its decision to reduce print publication to three days a week. They also are talking with investors, media companies and journalists about setting up print and digital alternatives, should the publisher go ahead with its plan for the Times-Picayune.

The decision by closely held Advance Publications Inc. to no longer publish the Times-Picayune seven days a week has prompted protest from loyal New Orleanians, given the paper's prizewinning coverage of Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill, and other events. Critics of the move leaped in with a "Save the Times-Picayune" rally on June 4 and restaurants mixing cocktails such as "Picayune Punch" to raise money to fight the change. Advance's plans, disclosed publicly on May 24, would make New Orleans the largest city in the country without a daily print newspaper. Assuming the plan remains in place—as Advance says it will—the 175-year-old Times-Picayune beginning this fall will be printed only on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.