New Orleans is set to become the largest metro area in America without a daily newspaper. The award-winning Times-Picayune is laying off half its news staff.
Longtime journalists are among those losing their jobs at the end of September. Newsroom staff took the hardest hit, with some positions also cut from other departments. In all, 200 have been told they’re out of work.
The parent company, Advance Publications, also laid off about 400 employees at three major daily papers in Alabama. Plans call for more focus on the papers’ websites.
The cutbacks have sparked rallies in New Orleans to keep the paper a daily, but the company is sticking to the plan of publishing only three editions a week, starting this fall.
