A bill passed by both houses of the Louisiana Legislature and now on its way to the governor’s desk could end The Times-Picayune’s decades-long monopoly on publishing the lucrative mandatory legal notices from public agencies. Clarification: The bill and this story refers only to state-required judicial notices issued by various agencies, a substantial subset of […]
Category: Government & Politics
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Opinion
Let’s hope T-P treats readers better than it treated its employees
The Times-Picayune opinion page should razz its ownership for the way it handled plans to cut staff and shrink to a three-days-a-week paper. The inside account of the T-P restructuring story, as reported by Kevin Allman at Gambit, reveals a lack of professionalism among the paper’s new decision-makers: Gambit spoke to more than a dozen […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use, Squandered Heritage
… and put in a parking lot: Mansion gives way to yet more macadam
With owners claiming Katrina damage, this architecturally eclectic structure on Prytania Street near Touro Hospital was demolished on Thanksgiving Day 2006. While people were basting turkeys or gussying up for a racetrack repast, bulldozers gassed up and tore into a lunch of timbers and cornices, a few blocks uptown of the Garden District. The same […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Squandered Heritage
The news was sometimes buried, but the T-P helped us back on our feet
I saw the headline and thought about the reporters, photographers, editors and staffers at the Times-Picayune and what this means for them. I wondered how they felt reading about their fate in another publication, not their own. Then I began to think about the news we wouldn’t be reading in the refashioned Times-Picayune and what […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Opinion
The axe falls: Life without that daily dose of ink on paper
It took 10 hours for The Times-Picayune to run a story about today’s big local news, which the New York Times broke last night: New Orleans will soon be out of a daily newspaper. The awards-winning Times-Picayune, one of the most-read papers in any metropolitan market, announced that it will reduce its delivery and sales […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Opinion: Changes at TP were necessary, but are they the right ones?
Photo by Laura Beatty The decision by The Times-Picayune to cut publication to three days a week and go all-in on the web is a response – probably belated – to some pretty grave realities. Whether it’s a solution is another question. What the bean counters have to hope is that they’ve struck the right […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Poorer communities continue to suffer lack of broadband access — and related opportunity
The Lens is reposting this story, first published March 23, in light of news that The Times-Picayune will be cutting back to three published newspapers a week, focusing its efforts instead on online reporting. The accompanying map shows the wide swaths of the city where broadband internet access is not prevalent — meaning people there […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Inside the News Room
In chasing down stories, are we furthering the agendas of others?
This evolving feature of The Lens will feature some behind-the-scenes looks at our staff and our decisions, as well as remind you of our upcoming events. When we received a tip that City Councilman Jon Johnson owned a rundown Lower 9th Ward property that had received a taxpayer-financed loan for renovation – yet hadn’t been […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
$166G in taxpayer loans, yet council member's property still a wreck
Nine-month deadline passes, but councilman’s property shows little evidence of generous government support.
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Johnson and Hedge-Morrell continue City Council stalemate
Continuing a legislative stalemate, two members were absent from a specially called New Orleans City Council meeting Wednesday morning, preventing the four members present from conducting council business. Those present are concerned that city business, from the mundane to the important, will continue to be stalled if Council members Jon Johnson and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell don’t […]