The Times-Picayune
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Times-Picayune: Ashton Phelps memo to staff
Posted by Kevin Allman on Thu, May 24, 2012 at 10:01 AM
The new plan, which will be executed under the name "NOLA Media Group," will leave New Orleans without a daily newspaper. The original Picayune originally published in 1837.
A memo under the name of outgoing publisher Ashton Phelps went out to staff this morning stating "Many current employees of The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com will have the opportunity to grow with the new organizations, but the need to reallocate resources to accelerate the digital growth of NOLA Media Group will necessitate a reduction in the size of the workforce."
The result, according to the memo, will be "a more robust newspaper." (Insert hollow laugh here.)
Phelps, whose family has steered the T-P for five generations, is being replaced by Ricky Mathews, publisher of the Mobile Press-Register and president of Advance Alabama/Mississippi.
AnnouncementSent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 8:21 AM
To all employees:
We wanted to make you aware of a news story that will be posted on NOLA.com regarding the future of the company, and to alert you that we will be scheduling meetings to discuss it with groups of employees today.
Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
Posted by Kevin Allman on Thu, May 24, 2012 at 2:40 AM
David Carr's report comes after a tumultuous week in the T-P newsroom, which began after incoming publisher Ricky Mathews came to New Orleans last week and held meetings with some — but not all — Times-Picayune executives off the building's premises.
Multiple sources have told Gambit that editor Jim Amoss and city editor Gordon Russell were in the meetings, as were sports editor Doug Tatum and features editor Mark Lorando. Managing editors Peter Kovacs and Dan Shea, the No. 2 lieutenants to Amoss, were excluded.
As for what the newsroom itself will become, the outlook is still unclear, though everyone expects significant layoffs to occur soon. As Carr wrote, "the newspaper will likely cease to exist as a daily newspaper, and will publish two or three times a week."
A Gambit source whose timeline of the reductions dovetails closely with Carr's report said in an email earlier this week that it was expected "the staff will immediately be whacked by at least a third (from 150 to 100 or fewer reporters). Top brass will be fired and reporters who remain aboard will take sharp salary cuts and be expected to start blogging through the day [for affiliated website NOLA.com]."
Carr's report says that the restructuring will mean longtime editors Kovacs and Shea will be leaving the paper, which Gambit also confirmed earlier this week with multiple sources. Carr says Amoss will be leaving as well, which Gambit was not able to confirm independently.
Reached by phone Wednesday before The New York Times story broke, Russell refused all comment about the paper, the future of the paper or his role there.
The level of disrespect for T-P employees by upper management was the main topic of conversation tonight. All employees with whom Gambit spoke — even longtime senior writers and editors — said they learned of their fates from The New York Times report.
"My supervisor didn't even fucking know," said one reporter. "My supervisor."
"I had to find this out by Twitter," said another. "Do I go in to the office tomorrow? Do I even have a job to go in to tomorrow? I don't know. No one has called me. No one has said anything."
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
A serious news website redesign
Posted by Kevin Allman on Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:32 AM
News website redesigns are all the rage these days, from this much-discussed "improvement" to The Lens' makeover (nice!) and, today, a new WDSU.com (good job). And then there's our new mobile site. But none of them are a patch on what The Baltimore Sun did today to commemorate its 175th anniversary. Check it out.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Y@ Speak: Post-Jazz Fest depression edition
Posted by Lauren LaBorde on Mon, May 14, 2012 at 11:34 AM
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Sal Perricone resigns from the U.S. Attorney's office
Posted by Kevin Allman on Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:30 AM
Sal Perricone, the assistant U.S. Attorney whose online comments severely embarrassed the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, handed in his resignation last night, according to a brief press release sent out this morning by Letten's office. The resignation, Letten points out, does not end the investigation into his online activities that was requested by Letten's office.
Perricone, under the handle "Henry L. Mencken1951," posted hundreds of comments on nola.com, the online arm of Advance Publications, which publishes The Times-Picayune. For more on the case, read Clancy DuBos' most recent column, "The Sudden Dubiety of His Redoubt."
The press release from the U.S. Attorney's office is under the jump.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Will The Times-Picayune print next week's abortion-themed Doonesbury cartoons?
Posted by Kevin Allman on Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 6:12 PM
- UCLICK COMICS
- A panel from one of next week's Doonesbury cartoons.
Here's an example of the barbed humor in the Thursday strip, as described by Romenesko:
In the stirrups, she is telling a nurse that she doesn’t want a transvaginal exam. Doctor says “Sorry miss, you’re first trimester. The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10″ shaming wand.” She asks “Will it hurt?” Nurse says, “Well, it’s not comfortable, honey. But Texas feels you should have thought of that.” Doctor says, “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”
A representative for Trudeau's newspaper syndicate, United Press Syndicate, told Fox News that replacement strips would be made available for papers that want them.
The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. — which, like The Times-Picayune, is owned by Advance Publications —Â wrote a letter to its readers today explaining why it wouldn't be running the strips. Would the T-P follow suit?
Reached by phone this afternoon, Times-Picayune editor Jim Amoss said, "I don’t want to be disingenuous, but we don’t discuss our editorial deliberations in advance." Amoss said he'd read the strips, but didn't say whether the paper would be publishing Doonesbury next week: "I’m afraid you’re just going to have to stay tuned."
The Oregonian article said that the Los Angeles Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch were among the papers choosing not to run Doonesbury next week. In an interview late today with The Washington Post, Trudeau said that to ignore the Texas law "would be comedy malpractice."
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Brett Anderson not to New York Times
Posted by Kevin Allman on Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM
So the vacant dining critic seat at The New York Times — currently occupied by temporary seat-sitter Eric Asimov — has been the subject of musical chairs in recent weeks, and word had it that only two men were in final contention to sit there officially: Times dining editor Pete Wells (the "inside the paper" choice) and The Times-Picayune's own bean man, Brett Anderson (the "bringing someone in" choice).
Today we know: It's Wells, not Anderson. POLITICO's Dylan Byers got the scoop and the internal Times memo announcing the appointment, which should be leaked into general dissemination in three... two... one... *
This is the second time The New York Times took Anderson's measure for the seat; he was considered in 2009, when the vacancy ended up going to another Times insider, Sam Sifton (now the paper's national editor).
What does Anderson think of this? Don't know; he's on a two-week vacation in Argentina.
* See? What did we tell you? Internal NYT memo under the jump.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Ten thoughts on the Advance Publications Saints-tweet deal
Posted by Kevin Allman on Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 12:46 PM
By now Saints fans and Twitter aficionados have heard the news: Advance Publications, the New York-based parent company of The Times-Picayune, was paying certain New Orleans Saints players to use their personal Twitter accounts to pimp the T-P's new Saints forum page. Like all things Advance, the new Saints forum takes good content and puts it in an ugly, hard-to-navigate wrapper — but rather than sink some cash into redeveloping a website that's been a mistake for more than a decade, Advance thought it could drum up some interest in the page by getting Drew Brees, Jon Vilma, Lance Moore, Tracy Porter and Pierre Thomas to endorse it.
The Times-Picayune had no say in this matter, as Jaquetta White makes clear in a very good, painful, honest story that doesn't pull punches when it discusses this breach of journalistic ethics. The marketing foolery is being discussed over at Poynter's Medianews, as well as Big Lead Sports.
1. Journalistic ethics aside: This is an act by a bunch of out-of-town beancounters who don't care about cheapening the very real relationship between the Saints and their fans.
2. The timing on this couldn't be worse for morale at 3800 Howard, as the paper is concluding its most recent round of staff buyouts this month, and employees are waiting to see who's staying, who's going ... and who's going to have to take on the extra work.
3. It's also a slap in the face to the sports department that built the very section Advance is cheapening. The T-P has good writers and editors, with no phony prima donnas or lazybones phoning it in.
4. Will it affect the sports department's coverage? Certainly not. Truth is, the Saints organization isn't fond of the media in general, regardless of whether the coverage is good or bad; it's impossible to imagine Jeff Duncan, John DeShazier, Mike Triplett or anyone else there feeling pressured to turn into a bunch of fanboys or pull their editorial punches based on this one stupid deal.
5. No one's talked about the players' role in this, but they can't be getting rich from 140-letter dispatches urging their fans to read nola.com. (Certainly Advance can't be paying as well as Vicks VapoRub.) So: is it a deal cut by the Saints organization itself? And who exactly has access to the individual Saints' Twitter accounts?
6. White's story says that the tweets were supposed to be marked #sponsor or #spon (?) to show they were bought and paid for. But these are football players, not journalists, so of course they don't always remember to follow the rules:
7. Saints players endorsing a corporate website is kind of a kick in the teeth to some of the homegrown, fan-driven Saints websites and forums, such as Who Dat Zone and Canal Street Chronicles. Would be nice if they could throw the little guys a little Twitter love, gratis.
8. Why stop there? Why not pay the Junior League of New Orleans and the members of the Boston Club to tweet about Nell Nolan's column? Us sports-lovin' Who Dats love us some fantasy debutante leagues, after all.
9. The new Saints forum page is described as "a new home for Saints news and community interaction. The new page greatly enhances the tools you need to read about your Saints and talk with the rest of the Who Dat Nation." One: New Orleanians don't need "tools" to read about the Saints. Two: Most of the other newspaper chains in the country have finally figured out people go to their websites to read the paper, not to replicate the Facebook experience. But Advance Publications is still trying to sell "community," not journalism.
10. And — confidential to Advance Publications: if you're hell-bent on doing this, the least you could do is get the goddamn little helmets right. Red??? We're not Kansas City.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Brett Anderson to New York Times? (redux)
Posted by Kevin Allman on Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 4:16 PM
For the record, half a dozen independent and reputable sources have told Eater that New Orleans' Brett Anderson, the James Beard award-winning critic of the Times Picayune, is a shoe-in for the recently vacated New York Times critic job (and he's not denying it). Some say he and his wife have already made the move to New York.
There's at least two problems with this: Brett's not married, and he was spotted in the Marigny this morning (see, we can play Page Six too). But maybe he was getting coffee and mochi balls on his way to the airport. Who knows. We've got a call in to him.
One month ago, when the rumor first surfaced, he was all Mr. No Comment.
EDITED TO ADD: Wow, Eater got the inaccuracies pulled in under 10 minutes. You scamps are fast.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Brett Anderson to The New York Times? "No comment."
Posted by Kevin Allman on Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 10:34 PM
It was no big secret that last time The New York Times was looking for a new food critic — waaaay back in 2009 — one of the names on the paper's short list was Brett Anderson, the bean-bestowing critic of The Times-Picayune. The job ended up going to an internal choice, Sam Sifton, but last week Sifton announced he was moving up to be the Times' national editor, once again leaving a vacancy in what is almost certainly the most powerful food journalism job in the country.
So who's short-listed this time around? Media sources are speculating that Pete Wells, the Times' Dining editor, is likely to be tapped. (Wells filled in on a temporary basis between Sifton and Sifton's precedessor, Frank Bruni.) But Anderson is still on good paper with the Times, his writing continues to win national awards, he's a bigfoot in the Association of Food Journalists and behind the scenes , he's well liked by his peers ... and his name has been floated about in the last week.
Has he been talking to the Times again? "No comment," Anderson said tonight.
Does Anderson know if he's really on the short list? Would he take the job this time if it was offered?
"No comment." "No comment."
And that was that.
Top Commenters
Recent Comments
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Re: Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
I say good riddance. The T-P has barely been a "news"paper for a while now.
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
This city dug itself in a hole a long time ago condoning 24/7 alcohol, gambling,…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Times-Picayune: Ashton Phelps memo to staff
3 days a week makes for a more robust paper? Whoever wrote the letter for…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
Having the print edition delivered was one of the things I looked forward to upon…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
Dad, really sad. Ibordered delivery of the Sunday paper to my daughter in Covington and…
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on May 24, 2012
via mobile
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Re: Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
Here's an idea, how about Gambit hire some of these folks away and publish it…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
This is the same kind of thing that happened to radio stations starting in the…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
What I would like to know is are my subscription rates going down now. If…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
So now, NOLA.com will get even worse? TP reporters censoring comments to…
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on May 24, 2012
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Re: Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge
the bad thing about this is that Ricky Mathews and Advance Alabama/Mississippi. (Advance Publications, the…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Casting Confederacy
Great minds think alike Tara!
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Casting Confederacy
Great, but I think John Goodman would be better to play Ignatius and he lives…
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