Times-Picayune Journalist Decides To Stay Despite Cutbacks

Journalist Mark Schleifstein. (Photo: Times-Picayune)

The award-winning Times-Picayune recently announced they will cut print editions back to three days a week, and cut its staff by half in an effort to focus on distributing content digitally.

The change was mourned by readers and journalists alike, many of whom remarked on the paper’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

Charles Pierce writes in Esquire:

One of the greatest sustained performances in the history of American newspapers was the one put on by the New Orleans Times-Picayune during, and in the immediate aftermath, of Hurricane Katrina. Operating, I am told, literally at some points by candlelight, the staff managed to the point of exhaustion to keep the drowning city informed of what was going on in and around it.

Mark Schleifstein was called the “prophet of Katrina’s wrath” for his pre-storm prediction of New Orleans vulnerability to flooding.

And when the staff cuts were made, he decided he would stay at the paper.

Guest:

• Mark Schleifstein, reporter for The Times-Picayune