NOLA.com hires Ron Higgins

Congrats to a good guy and a great writer.

 

Mentioned in the thread on his old job being opened.

Also mentioned in another thread was the newspaper war going on between Nola.com/Times-Picayune and the Baton Rouge/New Orleans Advocate. So far, on the sports side at least, call it a win for Nola.

The T-P hires Ron Higgins to come into the Baton Rouge market. On the other hand, to compete in the Saints market, the Advocate hired a guy who was a news reporter for the T-P. He's up against a solid and veteran Saints team from the T-P. The Advocate has two on its Saints team, the T-P has four.

Who's doing better with that exchange? Sounds like edge, Nola, although they did cough up some cash to do it, apparently.

That said, the Advocate has been hiring away a lot of respected T-P folks on the news side. But honestly, if you're winning the Saints and LSU coverage, you're winning the newspaper war, period, I'd say.

Meanwhile, the Advocate fights back by becoming the "official" newspaper of the Saints and Pelicans:

http://m.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/blogs/Post?basename=2248373-the-advocate-becomes-the-official-newspaper-of-the-new-orleans-saints-and-pelicans&day=04&id=blogofneworleans&month=09&year=2013

 

Great guy. Great writer. Congrats to one of the good guys.

 

Did a search for Ron Higgins before posting this; sorry, Brian.

 

Great hire. Congratulations, Ron.

Sincerely,

A guy you took to lunch at a pretty cool place in Memphis in spring 2010

 

No worries. Just pointing folks to the other thread to head off the next obvious question: "Will they replace him in Memphis?"

 

Interesting development in the New Orleans newspaper war. As fans arrived at the Superdome today for the Saints-Falcons game, every seat had a commemorative section of the New Orleans Advocate. Inside was a story touting the "partnership" of the Advocate with the Saints and Pelicans. Tom Benson was vocal in his displeasure when the Times-Picayune cut back to three days, especially losing the Monday edition, and apparently this is his response.

BTW, the section wasn't just a throwaway, either. Most of it was taken up by a long, well-written feature by Perryn Keys on Steve Gleason, the former Saints special teams favorite who has Lou Gehrig's Disease (and who looks like he's running out of time).

EDIT: I missed the link Brian Griffin provided, so I'm a little behind. :