Times-Picked Off? :-O

New Orleans' only major newspaper, the Times-Picayune, announced that it will soon only be published in the paper format three days per week due to necessary cost reductions. The Times-Pic publishes the beat writing for the New Orleans Saints and is the paper for which Pro Football Hall of Fame Committee member Peter Finney writes. I don't have the words to tell you how disappointed I am to hear about this. I also heard this story on a Houston radio station yesterday and saw a short write up on the blog Dueling Couches that prompted me to speak up.

I was born and raised in New Orleans and live just 90 minutes away in Baton Rouge. I would pick up a copy of the Times-Picayune at stores here in Louisiana's Capital City just to keep up with news back home and, frankly, it is a better newspaper than the local paper offered here. I may have to rethink how I define a "better paper", however and The Advocate, for now, will still be an available everyday newspaper.

That the TP will only be available in paper form on weekends is almost unfathomable to me. I am only 37 years old. I run this blog. I get it with the Internet. I don't get how a major city does without an actual news PAPER. They are two different products.

I can't fold my computer up and sit quietly in the basement cafeteria (where the wireless signal sucks) and eat lunch. I can't (or won't) take my laptop into the bathroom in the morning with my coffee. I can't really (practically or comfortable or affordably) take my laptop on an airplane and read the news.

This is a cost of technology, not a benefit. Sad.

Another one bites the dust.

Image from www.usatoday.com