The Picayune: Named After the Smallest Coin
The Times-Picayune has been the newspaper of record for New Orleans since 1837, when it launched as The Picayune — named after the Spanish half-real coin, the smallest denomination in circulation, which was also the paper's purchase price. The name was a boast of accessibility: this newspaper costs almost nothing, and everyone can read it. Nearly two centuries later, the name endured even as the coin that inspired it disappeared.
For generations, the Times-Picayune was more than a newspaper. It was the connective tissue of the city — the place where New Orleanians learned who had been born, who had died, who had been arrested, who had been elected, and what was for dinner. The paper's food section was legendary. Its coverage of Carnival was encyclopedic. Its obituaries — in a city that takes death as seriously as it takes life — were read with the devotion other cities reserve for sports pages.
The Katrina Coverage
The Times-Picayune's finest and most painful hour came during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. When the storm hit and the levees broke, the paper's staff was scattered across the city, many of them trapped by floodwaters themselves. The physical plant flooded. The presses went silent. For the first time since the Civil War, the Times-Picayune could not print.
But the staff kept reporting. Journalists filed stories from rescue boats, from shelters, from the rooftops where they and their neighbors waited for help. The paper published online — one of the first major newspapers to pivot entirely to digital during a crisis — and its coverage of the disaster won two Pulitzer Prizes. The staff of the Times-Picayune told the story of Katrina to the world while living through it themselves.
The Long Decline
What happened next is a story familiar to newspapers across America, but in New Orleans it hit with particular force. In 2012, the paper's owner, Advance Publications, cut the print edition to three days a week — a decision that felt, to many New Orleanians, like losing a family member. The paper eventually merged with The New Orleans Advocate, the upstart daily that had launched specifically to fill the gap left by the reduced Picayune. The combined paper became The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate, later shortened to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, in a series of name changes that confused everyone.
The Alternative Press
New Orleans has always had a robust alternative media scene. Gambit Weekly, the city's alternative newsweekly, has covered local politics, culture, and food with attitude since 1980. The Louisiana Weekly, founded in 1925, is one of the oldest and most respected African American newspapers in the South, covering the Black community with a depth and consistency that mainstream media often failed to match.
WWOZ, the community radio station at 90.7 FM, deserves special mention. Broadcasting from the French Quarter, WWOZ is the sound of New Orleans — a volunteer-run station that plays traditional jazz, R&B, blues, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, and brass band music twenty-four hours a day. During Mardi Gras, WWOZ provides live coverage of parades and Indian sightings. During Jazz Fest, it broadcasts from the Fair Grounds. For New Orleanians scattered across the world after Katrina, WWOZ's online stream was a lifeline — proof that the city's heartbeat was still going.
WWL: The Big Station
WWL-TV, Channel 4, the CBS affiliate, is the most-watched television station in the New Orleans market and has been for decades. During hurricane season, WWL becomes essential — its weather coverage, anchored for years by meteorologists who understand the Gulf Coast like few others, is the station New Orleanians turn to when a storm enters the Gulf. WWL Radio, 870 AM, serves a similar role — the voice of authority during emergencies and the home of Saints play-by-play for generations of fans.
New Orleans is the 51st-largest television market in America, which means it punches well above its weight in terms of the cultural content it produces for a media market its size. But that's New Orleans in a nutshell — a small city with an outsized voice, telling its own story to anyone who'll listen.
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