Entire New Orleans Times-Picayune staff laid off in sale

A competitor that purchased The New Orleans Times-Picayune laid off the newspaper’s entire staff. 

The New York Post reported Friday that a total of 161 workers lost their jobs, including 65 reporters and editors, citing a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice filed with the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

The owners of The New Orleans Advocate, John and Dathel Georges, purchased The Times-Picayune from Advance Local. Advance Local is part of the same corporation that owns Condé Nast. 

The Advocate will publish a daily paper using the names of both brands beginning in June and will merge their websites under NOLA.com. 

Times-Picayune staffers mourned the layoffs on Twitter. 

Last night, I stood in Pulitzer Hall at Columbia and accepted The Dart Award. Today, I ugly cried on an airplane as I heard @NOLAnews was bought and we’re all losing our jobs in 60 days. The whole newsroom.

Life.

— Haley Correll (@HaleyCorrell) May 3, 2019

Here’s a goofy pic of all of us at the #DartAwards 24 hours before we got laid off. pic.twitter.com/Sv9WIVwyPP

— Emma Scott (@emmatscott) May 3, 2019

It’s been a traumatic, amazing, sorta beautiful in the “beautiful mess” sense 24 hours. I can’t even describe how proud I am of every one of the @NOLAnews staff. And I thought I was proud before. We started a job board so keep links coming. Thanks to all for the support today.

— Carolyn P. Fox (@carolynpfox) May 4, 2019