Newspaper in Louisiana, United States
The Advocate
is
Louisiana
's largest daily newspaper. Based in
Baton Rouge
, it serves the southern portion of the state. Separate editions for
New Orleans
,
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
, and for
Acadiana
,
The Acadiana Advocate
, are published. It also publishes
gambit
, about New Orleans food, culture, events, and news, and weekly entertainment magazines:
Red
in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, and
Beaucoup
in New Orleans.
History
[
edit
]
The oldest ancestor of the modern paper was the
Democratic Advocate
, an anti-
Whig
, pro-
Democrat
periodical
established in 1842.
[2]
[3]
Another newspaper, the
Louisiana Capitolian
, was established in 1868 and soon merged with the then-named
Weekly Advocate
. By 1889 the paper was being published daily. In 1904, a new owner, William Hamilton, renamed it
The Baton Rouge Times
and later
The State-Times
, a paper with emphasis on local news.
[2]
In 1909,
The State-Times
was acquired by Capital City Press, a company newly founded by Charles P. Manship Sr. and James Edmonds. Manship purchased his partner's interest in 1912. In 1925, he also began publishing
The Morning Advocate
to focus on national news. The Manship family
[4]
[5]
went on to become an influential force in Baton Rouge, later adding radio station
WJBO
in 1932 (moving it to Baton Rouge in 1934) and television station
WBRZ-TV
in 1955.
[4]
[6]
The State-Times
, an afternoon publication, ceased in October 1991.
The Advocate
remains the sole descendant of the original 1842 paper. The Manship family's Capital City Press company continued to own and operate
The Advocate
until 2013.
On October 1, 2012, under the Manships,
The Advocate
began printing and distributing a daily New Orleans edition. This was due to a perceived gap in the market
[7]
that materialized when New Orleans' longtime daily paper,
The Times-Picayune
, announced it would cut back its print publication to only three days a week.
[8]
[9]
In March 2013, New Orleans businessman
John Georges
signed a letter of intent to purchase
The Advocate
.
[10]
Georges and his wife Dathel bought the newspaper through a holding company, Georges Media, on April 30, 2013.
[11]
The newspaper's circulation in 2013 was 98,000 (daily) and 125,000 (Sunday) as a result of its entry into and 20,000 subscriptions in the New Orleans market.
[
citation needed
]
[
needs update
]
The Advocate
relaunched its New Orleans edition August 18, 2013, as
The New Orleans Advocate
and later added
The Acadiana Advocate
, a third edition serving Lafayette and the
Acadiana
region.
[12]
On April 9, 2018, the holding company for
The New Orleans Advocate
purchased the New Orleans weekly
Gambit
and bestofneworleans.com.
[13]
[14]
In 2019,
The Advocate
won its first
Pulitzer Prize
, in the
Local Reporting
category, "For a damning portrayal of the state’s discriminatory conviction system, including a Jim Crow-era law, that enabled Louisiana courts to send defendants to jail without jury consensus on the accused’s guilt."
[15]
The Advocate
's reporting highlighted how the state's non-unanimous jury law?one of only two in the country, with the other being in
Oregon
[16]
?contributed to racial disparities in incarceration and sentencing.
[17]
Due in part to a voter-education campaign based on
The Advocate
's reporting, Louisiana voters approved an amendment to the state constitution requiring unanimous jury verdicts on November 6, 2018.
[18]
[19]
[20]
In May 2019,
The Advocate
announced that the Georges had purchased its New Orleans competitor,
The Times-Picayune
, and planned to merge the two papers and their websites into a new newspaper in June 2019.
[21]
[22]
Like
The Advocate
, the combined newspaper will publish a print edition seven days a week.
[21]
[22]
The Advocate'
s Baton Rouge and Lafayette editions were unaffected. The merged paper, carrying the nameplates of both
The Times-Picayune
and
The New Orleans Advocate
, began publication on July 1.
[23]
Notable people
[
edit
]
- In 2007, the newspaper lost three of its key staff with the deaths of Capitol Bureau Chief John LaPlante, health reporter and author of "The Patient Person" columns Laurie Smith Anderson and environmental writer Michael P. Dunne. LaPlante died in
Texas
in a
drowning
accident, and Anderson and Dunne succumbed to
cancer
.
[24]
- In 2013, two-time
Pulitzer
Prize winner
Walt Handelsman
returned to Louisiana to join
The Advocate
as a cartoonist and animator, and columnist
James Gill
moved to
The Advocate
from the
Times-Picayune
.
[
citation needed
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"The Advocate"
.
Louisiana Press Association
. Retrieved
2023-04-24
.
- ^
a
b
"The Advocate History"
.
theadvocate.com
. Archived from
the original
on 2016-04-25
. Retrieved
2016-04-22
.
- ^
"The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate | WorkNOLA"
.
www.worknola.com
. Retrieved
2020-09-06
.
- ^
a
b
"History of the Manship family"
,
manshiptheatre.org
. Retrieved 2016-09-21.
- ^
Weber, Jeremy.
"La. daily remains advocate of free press"
.
Inland Press Association
. Retrieved
2020-09-06
.
- ^
WBRZ.
"The Advocate newspaper buys historic New Orleans newspaper"
.
WBRZ
. Retrieved
2020-09-06
.
- ^
Murphy, Paul. "
The Advocate overwhelmed with subscribers, leaving some waiting on papers
Archived
October 8, 2012, at the
Wayback Machine
."
WWLTV
. October 5, 2012. Retrieved on October 10, 2012.
- ^
Hagey, Keach (May 24, 2012).
"Times-Picayune of New Orleans No Longer a Daily"
.
The Wall Street Journal
. Retrieved
May 24,
2012
.
- ^
Mirkinson, Jack (May 24, 2012).
"New Orleans Times-Picayune Faces Deep Cuts, Will End Daily Publication"
.
Huffington Post
. Retrieved
May 24,
2012
.
- ^
"Georges signs letter of intent to buy The Advocate"
.
The Advocate (Louisiana)
. March 25, 2013. Archived from
the original
on January 6, 2014
. Retrieved
2013-03-26
.
- ^
"John Georges hands Advocate publisher's reins to Dan Shea"
.
theadvocate.com
. Retrieved
2016-04-22
.
- ^
"How The Advocate conquered New Orleans (and most of the rest of Louisiana, too)"
.
Poynter
. 2019-05-21
. Retrieved
2020-09-06
.
- ^
Advocate staff (April 9, 2018).
"
'A perfect fit': Advocate purchases Gambit weekly, bestofneworleans.com"
.
The New Orleans Advocate
. Retrieved
2018-04-12
.
- ^
Gambit staff (April 9, 2018).
"The Advocate purchases Gambit and BestofNewOrleans.com"
.
bestofneworleans.com
. Retrieved
2018-04-12
.
- ^
"The 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Local Reporting: Staff of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La"
.
pulitzer.org
. April 2019
. Retrieved
2019-04-26
.
- ^
Wilson, Conrad (April 10, 2019).
"Oregon Court Of Appeals Ruling Upholds State's Nonunanimous Juries"
.
opb.org
. Retrieved
2019-04-26
.
- ^
Advocate Staff (April 15, 2019).
"The Advocate wins first Pulitzer Prize for series that helped change Louisiana's split-jury law"
.
The Advocate
. Retrieved
2019-04-26
.
- ^
Advocate Staff.
"Tilting the scales series: Everything to know about Louisiana's controversial 10-2 jury law"
.
The Advocate
. Retrieved
2019-04-26
.
- ^
Simerman, John; Russell, Gordon (November 7, 2018).
"From ACLU to NRA: Campaign for unanimous juries targeted Louisiana voters across the spectrum"
.
The Advocate
. Retrieved
2019-04-26
.
- ^
Simerman, John (May 14, 2018).
"
'It's time': Louisiana House backs letting voters decide on controversial jury verdict law"
.
The Advocate
. Retrieved
2019-04-26
.
- ^
a
b
The Associated Press
(2019-05-02).
"Louisiana's The Advocate purchasing The Times-Picayune"
.
ABC News
. Retrieved
2019-05-02
.
- ^
a
b
Advocate staff (2019-05-02).
"Times-Picayune, nola.com bought by Advocate's Dathel and John Georges to ensure 'strong' news company"
.
The Advocate
. Retrieved
2019-05-02
.
- ^
Kovacs, Peter (June 30, 2019).
"A new day for The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate: A letter from the editor to our readers"
.
NOLA.com
. Retrieved
2019-07-12
.
- ^
"Mike Dunne, Veteran Reporter in Baton Rouge, Dies at 58 ? Editor & Publisher Magazine"
.
www.editorandpublisher.com
. Archived from
the original
on 2020-01-22.
External links
[
edit
]