Tulane Beat Writer

This is no criticism of Fred but this would be a good job for a young guy willing to try and do more with the beat, including daily blogs and notes.
Sometime it's tough for a veteran to keep pushing when he's on a beat that doesn't get a lot of space on a daily basis. After awhile it gets easier to just accept things the way they are and go with the flow.
Some young guy might just bust his butt to write everything he can about the program, even if it's a daily blog or just notes. If he does that, he could turn it into a bigger job at the T-P or elsewhere.

 

I imagine you would probably be able to slide in and help out with Sugar Bowl/BCS Championship game coverage. God knows the Greenies don't play in big bowls.

 

I have some specific questions about this job. If anyone with first-hand knowledge of the T-P could PM me, that would be great.

 

This will be a pretty good gig for someone looking to move up, but living in New Orleans isn't the barrel of laughs it used to be.

 

You can become a statistic there very quickly.

 

Only if you go in the wrong parts of town ... just like most other major metropolitan cities. Everything you liked about N.O. before 8/29/05, with a couple of minor exceptions, is back.

 

It's a nice town. Had a lot of fun on my visits there. I haven't been since Katrina. The thought of corpses and sewage floating around still gives me the shivers. I'm glad that the city is rebuilding.

 

Who are the early favorites? We know you guys have a list.

 

Uh, there was a lot more to the city than the skanks flashing their goods in the Vieux Carre. Believe me, some of the best areas of the city, away from the tourist traps, still have years of recovery ahead of it.

The Garden District wasn't hit anywhere near as hard as the Ninth Ward, but the street cars aren't even running through there yet. Take a drive toward Lake Pontchartrain, through Lakeview or Lake Terrace over where the 17th Street levee broke, and those areas are only now making any real headway with recovery. Easily half of the homes in those areas appear uninhabitable. Most homeowners back in New Orleans live in a FEMA trailer on their property.

Thankfully, those beautiful oak trees that canopied so much of the city seem to have survived the flood, for the most part. Had they gone, you'd be looking at an even more desolate place with little hope of ever recovering the charm the city had so much of before Katrina.

It's sad what the city has become. Sadder still that all these politicians making a run at the White House have given little more than lip service about any meaningful plans to get the city back on its feet. And don't get me started about The Shrub.

 

What's the paper's circulation these days? Kind of curious how it has recovered since Katrina.

 

That statement isn't even close to accurate.

 

The T-P didn't report its circulation to ABC last year. Pre-Katrina it was in the 270,000 range. Now, from what's on the Internet, it's believed to be less than half that. The T-P won't say, and I don't blame them.