I just reblogged that image of the Times-Picayune ribbon, but then I felt like I needed to say a few words. Sort of a eulogy I suppose.

I know some people are tired of hearing about Katrina. There’s fatigue. But what some may not realize is that in the months following Katrina, the Times-Picayune was made available to the people of NOLA free of charge for a time. It was part of the community support and healing. This was a time when people didn’t have mail delivery. Some didn’t have street signs to direct workmen to their battered homes. Many were no where near the city. But we had the newspaper. It was a comfort. And it was a constant in the chaos.

Last year I bought a couple of the special edition books the newspaper produced celebrating 175 years of its history in NOLA. It is an award winning newspaper that has produced quality journalism for almost two centuries. It is the newspaper of a city that still acts like a small town. And small towns are big on traditions and rituals. And a big city conglomerate that now owns the newspaper will not continue to publish daily for the citizens and and tourists of NOLA. Historically it has had a larger circulation as a percentage of population than any other city and will now become the largest city in the country without a daily newspaper as the TP goes to three day a week distribution in the fall.

In a city of sports events like the upcoming 2013 Super Bowl, there will be no Monday morning paper announcing the winner. The only reason that the presidential election will be announced the next day is that the paper will be published on Wednesday, Fridays and Sundays. This has caused angst in the city the likes of which I have not seen since Katrina. It is a devastating blow, not only to the hundreds of employees who were fired this week, but to the hundreds of thousands of loyal readers who depend on the newspaper. 

It is a city in recovery where not everyone (by a long shot) has internet access. It is a city steeped in traditions of morning papers and coffee. One woman recently pointed out that she is worried about the confusion this will cause her dog who fetches the paper each day and she is worried that the dog will start snatching the neighbors WSJ. It is a city with a local problem which I think can only be solved locally. 

Advance Publications is a conglomerate with no ties to the city and no interest other than financial. If NOLA is to have a daily newspaper (as it’s cousin cities of Baton Rouge and Shreveport will continue to have) then it will only happen if the people on NOLA make it happen, just as they have had to make pretty much everything that has happened since Katrina happen. On their own. By the sweat and determination of a bunch of people who won’t give up. We may be the city that care forgot. But we have never been the city that forgot to care.