Baton Rouge Advocate next on the list

nice. i thought something was missing there.

 

Bad month for Louisiana family-owned papers.

Lake Charles American Press had another round of layoffs with the editor-in-chief and classifieds director getting the axe. The first round came up in January and more are expected over the course of the year. No one there is safe. Well...almost no one.

 

The editor-in-chief getting the boot? Damn.

 

He was there for 25 years. No loyalty at all.

 

Good friend of mine. We worked together at our college paper and worked together in Lake Charles for 13 of his 25 years there. We share the same birthday. We had breakfast a week after his last day there, and we talked about all of the things you'd imagine we'd talk about.

He'll land on his feet. My suggestion to him was to make himself a multimedia mogul. He's got a great voice for radio/podcast/voice-overs and what-not, and he's a newspaper guy through and through, with all of the good horse sense (and little of the bad) that suggests.

I've had a lot of friends lose their jobs lately. I wish I could do something to help them, but they're all sharp folks and will find their niche.

 

Why do newspapers think this is the way to go? What idiot of an advertiser would advertise one of these inane podcasts created by stuffed shirt clowns who believe they know what the public wants? Newspapers are dead because they stopped doing what they do best.
Podcasts? Have you ever clicked on a podcast? This is all mumbo jumbo. The people pushing this stuff (the five of them) are probably millionaires after giving all their speeches across the country and convincing publishers this is the future. These experts hae hit it rich; meanwhile everybody else is getting fired or furloughed.

 

The point remains the guy has a great voice and could put it to use in a variety of ways. The days of most of us having one primary job description are over, and as many ways as one can diversify, the better. I know incredibly literate people who regularly listen to podcasts, and they're not idiots. Therefore, I don't think you can make the blanket statement that an advertiser would be an idiot for supporting a podcast.

Is it as lucrative as print newspapers? No, but forgive me if I try to help a friend take advantage of his pluses in a changing job world.

 

Nope, that's the kind of place that he'll get promoted.

 

Winner winner Tuna Helper dinner.

(Times are tough. No money for chicken. Sorry.)

 

I think Hamburger Helper tastes just fine without the hamburger, don't you Clark?

 

I think the two Louisiana family-owned papers were doing OK before the recession hit and would still be doing OK if not for the sharp and sudden decrease in national ads in the auto and retail sectors (no more Circuit City inserts, and closed car dealerships, yada, yada). Even their real estate sections are doing OK, all things considered.

So while they still may enter the death spiral everybody else is on, they also stand a better chance at coming out of this in relatively decent shape. In terms of where they stand going forward, I'd rather be the Baton Rouge Advocate or the Lake Charles American Press than, say, the Lafayette Advertiser or the Shreveport Times (a couple of Gannetts).

 

Yeah, Gannett is too damn busy figuring out how its board of directors are going to get their hefty bonuses this year. Cut, cut, cut. That's Christmas spending money for board members with other jobs, isn't it?