The Advocate & The Times-Picayune merge. Both now owned by wealthy businessman John Georges.
By Gavrielle Gemma
Every newspaper, TV and radio station represents the interests of either the capitalist class or the working class. Workers Voice newspaper represents the interests of the workers, whether employed, unemployed, undocumented or incarcerated. There is another difference in that Workers Voice openly sides with the workers, while the establishment media lie and promote a hidden agenda on behalf of the super-rich.
The two large capitalist newspapers, The Advocate and The Times-Picayune, plus Nola.com (and the Gambit) just merged in the hands of one of Louisiana’s richest businessmen, John Georges.
Georges is CEO of Georges Enterprises, which includes over 50 businesses: Imperial Trading Company (with sales of $1 billion), AMA Distributors, The Advocate newspapers, and numerous restaurants. He made a fortune off of video poker machines across the country, as well as restaurants and an exclusive country club. He is also on the board of First National Bank. From the profit extracted from the labor of workers in those industries, he didn’t raise wages but spent $50 million to buy The Advocate. He pushes alcohol, cigarettes and gambling at truck stops around the country.
Why did King Georges want The Advocate? In that paper’s own words: “His counsel will be sought. He will be courted and schmoozed by every powerful person in the state, sooner or later. What’s more, he will have a forum for his platform should he choose to run again for office. Should he not, he will be in a position to help crown the next king.” So much for “democracy!”
Both newspapers have been around for over 150 years. As recently as 1960, The Times-Picayune used its pages to openly advocate white supremacy and to maintain segregation. In an editorial, they wrote:
“The Orleans Parish School Board, the governor, the attorney-general and members of the Legislature have worked hard to avoid even token integration…[we] regret that their efforts did not achieve complete success.”
The Times-Picayune ended: “So far as we are concerned, we don’t like school integration any better in 1960 than we did in 1954, when we urged a relentless legal fight against it: but it doesn’t do any good to adopt an ostrich attitude and stick our heads in the sands.”
Today, they are more subtle but still uphold “news” and opinions that satisfy the rich white establishment at the expense of working class people, Black and white. They routinely oppose raises for teachers and attack their unions. While in the recent past they promoted outright segregation, today they promote policies that uphold institutional racism like gentrification, the privatization of schools, mass incarceration, low wages and high Black unemployment.
While Workers Voice is written and funded by workers of all nationalities, The Advocate and The Times-Picayune are solely under the editorial control of rich, white people.
As Dwight Ott, one of the first Black reporters with The Times-Picayune, wrote in a 1993 letter entitled “New Orleans’ newspapers give white view of the city”:
“For most of its years, historians and journalists said, the newspaper has been a powerful force in New Orleans, shaping and reflecting racial attitudes and the character of the city. And for the greater part of its years, the newspaper gave readers an image of black people as intellectually and morally inferior, relegated to a lower social caste than white people and often little more than lazy or criminal. It’s that image of black people that many people carry today…
Many people remember a newspaper that fought to keep schools segregated, calling integration ‘evil’ and [Dr. Martin Luther] King a ‘troublemaker.’ The Times-Picayune was a paper with no full-time black reporters until the 1970s, one that rarely wrote about black people unless they committed crimes.”
On May 2, The Times-Picayune bosses notified staffers by email at 2 pm to show up for a 3 pm meeting. At the meeting they were informed that as part of the merge deal, they would all be laid off. They were then told that they could reapply for their jobs.
According to a report in VICE News, “Times-Picayune staffers were shocked.” According to a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) notice filed with the Louisiana Workforce Commission, 161 staff members are being fired.