The Advocate newspaper system has virtually taken over journalism in South Louisiana.
Currently this paper has journalists that focus on state- wide issues as well as local news in Baton
Rouge, New Orleans, Acadiana and Lake Charles.
Just this month Judi Terzotis, publisher of The Advocate, The Times-Picayune, and NOLA.com has invited many local citizens to several forums for " a discussion about the future of journalism in the Shreveport-Bossier area."
The gatherings have been at LSUS and at The Robinson Film Center.
Those "key" people were assembled for in-person discussion "as we walk you through our vision for expanded journalism in the Shreveport-Bossier community."
This vision is to have up to five journalist and a photographer on local beats: government, business, sports, editorials, and entertainment. Whether or not these people will work in this area or by long distance writers is unknown to this writer.
It’s no secret that the overwhelming majority of Shreveport Bossier residents are very dissatisfied with the Shreveport Times under the ownership of Gannett.
Locally the Times has three on-staff journalist and an editor. With the exception of Jimmy Watson, the staff is very young, very green, and very inexperienced as working journalists.
Those unhappy readers have a weekly option that have 32-40 pages of local factual news.
FOCUS SB publishes positive local news in the region, primarily Shreveport and Bossier.
The Inquisitor factually reports local crime and articles on law enforcement.
Editorials are published by local, known writers.
The challenge The Advocate will face with a Shreveport Bossier edition is twofold: lack of institutional knowledge of the local area and lack of contacts for information gathering.
The challenge local residents will have is to become totally comfortable with an online paper that will probably reported and written by unknowns.
There are other options for local citizenry.
Take a gander at FOCUS SB/The Inquisitor. And if you want a free mailed edition, email me at john@jesettle.com!