The news this week is in the news itself, an abortion bill advances, voters may get the choice to ban the death penalty, and more. Here's what you need to know in New Orleans this week.
Georges Media Group purchases the Times-Picayune |
A six-year newspaper war in New Orleans came to an abrupt halt last week as John and Dathel Georges, owners of h and Gambit, announced they had purchased The Times-Picayune | from Advance Local, the company that owned the city’s oldest news outfit for half a century.
"We literally signed the deal yesterday," John Georges told h and Gambit newsroom.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Georges' interest in purchasing The Times-Picayune | was no secret, and chatter that a possible deal was imminent had spread in media circles since the beginning of the year.
Beginning in June, the two newspapers will become one, with mutual branding of the papers' "flags" on Page 1. The purchase also includes the website , which will become the landing page for the new product.
It was a stunning end to an era of news competition in New Orleans, which began in 2012 as The Times-Picayune announced a "digital transition" that included laying off nearly 200 employees and delivering the newspaper to homes only three days a week.
Despite protests across the city, the Newhouse family — owners of Advance Local, which publishes the paper — refused to sell at the time.
The following year, Georges bought the Baton Rouge Advocate and its parent company, Capitol City Press, from its longtime owners, the Manship family, and announced it would expand into the New Orleans market. He hired former Times-Picayune managing editors Peter Kovacs and Dan Shea; Kovacs became the paper's editor and Shea its publisher.
That set the stage for a two-newspaper war in New Orleans at a time when many larger cities had difficulty sustaining even a single daily paper.
Over the next few years, the New Orleans Advocate grew its staff, eventually settling in a handsomely remodeled newsroom and event space at 840 St. Charles Avenue. Georges purchased Gambit in 2018 from its owners Clancy and Margo DuBos, and earlier this year hired away many employees from the Lafayette Daily Advertiser to bolster the Acadiana Advocate. Two weeks ago, The New Orleans Advocate won its first Pulitzer Prize.
In an email to Advocate and Gambit staff after the announcement, John and Dathel Georges wrote, "In June, we plan to publish a single, seven-day newspaper in New Orleans carrying the flags of both The Times-Picayune and h, and will launch a new using the resources of h. Until then, the T-P and will continue to operate as they do now.
"For the past 50 years, under the Newhouse family, The Times-Picayune was the gold standard for a successful local newspaper. We intend to build on that legacy."
Advance Local will not be selling any of its other newspaper properties in other cities, according to a Times-Picayune story about the sale.
Current Times-Picayune employees were told they would continue to be employed by Advance for 60 days, but some quickly took to social media to announce they would be looking for work.
Georges told Advocate and Gambit employees that there would be some new hires from the Times-Picayune coming aboard.
"Yesterday’s competitors are tomorrow’s colleagues, and we hope you welcome any new hires in the coming weeks with open arms," Georges told the newsroom in an email. — KEVIN ALLMAN
‘Fetal heartbeat’ abortion bill advances in state Senate committee
A bill that would outlaw abortions as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected by a doctor cleared a state Senate committee 5-2 last week after discussion of application and litigation costs.
Senate Bill 184 is authored by Sen. John Milkovich, D-Shreveport, who supports banning all abortions and who said it was a “scientific fact” that life begins at conception.
The bill does not specify when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, but ultrasounds generally can detect them at around six or seven weeks of pregnancy — in some cases, later than women discover they’re pregnant. Most women first find out they’re pregnant between four and seven weeks, according to The American Pregnancy Association.
The only exception the bill carves out is abortion in the case of preventing the death of the mother or “risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
Several people came to testify in support of Milkovich’s bill, but drawing the most attention was Jennifer McCoy, a woman from Wichita, Kansas, who served two and a half years in prison for conspiracy to commit arson at an abortion clinic. McCoy has also been linked to Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist who admitted in 2009 to killing Dr. George Tiller of Women's Health Care Services, whose services included late-term abortions.
Sen. Yvonne Colomb, D-Baton Rouge, offered an amendment — which ultimately failed — that would have carved out exceptions to the ban in cases of rape and incest. Milkovich said he opposed the amendment. Since he didn’t have a vote on the committee, it initially passed without objection. But later, when Executive Director of h Right to Life Benjamin Clapper said he opposed the amendment, Sen. Bodi White, R-Baton Rouge, called a second vote.
“I had doubts about the amendment, but I kept looking for someone in opposition — other than the author and I knew he would be in opposition. On my own, I can’t tell,” White said. The committee then voted 4-2 to strip the amendment.
Ellie Schilling, a New Orleans attorney, said the bill would drastically cut the time a woman has to decide if she wants to have an abortion or carry her pregnancy to term. Schilling argued that this would contradict previous laws the h Legislature passed, such as a bill extending the mandatory wait time for a woman to have an abortion from 24 hours to 72 hours.
“By pushing the ban so early in pregnancy you’re going to force people very quickly to make that decision,” she said.
Since the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, courts traditionally have ruled that a state cannot ban abortion before viability, which is typically between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy. “Heartbeat bills” and bills seeking bans at 15 weeks — such as the one Louisian passed last year — often are struck down in court.
Several senators on the committee who supported the bill questioned how it would work logistically and how providers would be held accountable. “You need to do some work on this bill,” White said to Milkovich.
The bill now heads to the Senate floor. — KAYLEE POCHE
Should voters decide whether to ban the death penalty in h?
A bill that would let h residents vote on whether to ban the death penalty in the state cleared a Senate committee 4-2 last week. The proposed constitutional amendment, if approved by 2/3 of the House and Senate as well as a majority of voters in a statewide referendum, would ban the death penalty for any offense committed on or after Jan. 1, 2021. It would not affect current death penalty cases.
The proposed amendment is contained in Senate Bill 112 by state Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge. It was presented to the Senate Judiciary C Committee by state Sen. JP Morrell, D-New Orleans, and state Rep. Terry Landry, D-New Iberia. Both Morrell and Landry cited concerns about cases where people on death row were found to be innocent.
“If you do not hold that government gets it right every single time, then death should not be on the table,” said Morrell, a former New Orleans public defender.
Landry agreed, adding, “I also believe that our system is driven sometimes by overzealous police officers, overzealous prosecutors, political pressure — and sometimes we get it wrong.”
State Public Defender James Dixon said the h Public Defender Board (LPDB) has spent more than $103 million on costs relating to the death penalty since 2008. The state executed one person in that time — Gerald Bordelon, who voluntarily waived his appeals. At the end of this fiscal year, that amount will rise to $111 million, Dixon said. This is not the total amount the death penalty costs the state, which also includes court costs, prosecutorial expenses and jury costs.
“There seems to be a misconception among many that the cost of incarcerating someone for life is more expensive than the death penalty. Studies have been done throughout the United States actually showing the opposite is true,” Dixon said, adding that life in prison is between $500,000 to $1.5 million cheaper per case than pursuing the death penalty.
Opponents of the bill, including District Attorneys Scott Perrilloux of Livingston Parish and Perry Nicosia of St. Bernard Parish, argued the death penalty helped give some victims' families a sense of justice. Nicosia, who took office in 2014, argued that the culture around the death penalty has changed and that DAs only use it in rare cases.
“It would take an extreme, horrific circumstance I think for any DA currently, the way we posturize ourselves and the way we take our jobs seriously,” he said. “… I think as a country, as a state and as a society, things are getting better.”
Religious leaders had differing opinions on the bill. h Conference of Catholic Bishops Executive Director Rob Tasman testified in favor of the bill, quoting Pope Francis, who has stated his opposition to the death penalty in all cases. Will Hall, an editor of Baptist Message, testified against it, arguing that even if no conclusive evidence has shown the death penalty is an effective deterrent for murder, the punishment aspect of it was important.
“Sometimes punishment is just for punishment,” Hall said.
The original bill set a public vote on the issue for October, should the bill garner the requisite two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, but it was amended to make the statewide referendum coincide with the 2020 presidential election. Legislators cited higher voter turnout as a reason, but that is also the election date for Louisian’s district judges and district attorneys.
Sens. Claitor; Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge; Troy Carter, D-New Orleans; and Yvonne Colomb, D-Baton Rouge voted in favor of the bill. Sens. Bob Hensgens, R-Abbeville, and Bodi White, R-Baton Rouge, voted against it. — KAYLEE POCHE
‘At the end of the day they shouldn’t be mad at us that they suck’
A day after details were released about the Superdome's upcoming $450 million makeover, a beat writer for the Atlanta Falcons wasted no time sending a jab across the NFC South. Jeff Schultz, who covers the Falcons and other teams for The Athletic, called the Superdome a "dump," though he made sure to let the city know it's nothing personal.
"I love the city, the food and the people," Schultz tweeted. "But there's 2 things I know about New Orleans: 1) The stadium is a dump; 2) $450 million won't fix that."
The cross-conference trash talk is nothing new among the Saints-Falcons rivalry. Before Atlanta hosted Super Bowl 53 earlier this year, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms generated headlines by saying she was hoping for "anybody other than the Saints" to make the big game, and also subtly jabbing the team for the so-called "bountygate" scandal in 2010.
The comment drew a harsh response from New Orleans District B City Councilman Jay Banks. "At the end of the day they shouldn't be mad at us that they suck," Banks said.
The renovations are the first major updates to the nearly half-century-old building since the post-Hurricane Katrina repairs. The first phase will include the removal of 80,000 square feet of interior ramps and installation of escalators and elevators. The New Orleans Saints will pay for one-third of the overall costs. All four phases of the overhaul are expected to be completed before the Superdome hosts Super Bowl 58 in 2024. — THE ADVOCATE STAFF