The Advocate (Louisiana) Explained

The Advocate
Type:Daily newspaper
Format:Broadsheet
Foundation:1925 (with heritage dating to 1842)
Owners:Georges Media
Headquarters:10705 Rieger Road
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Publisher:Judi Terzotis
Editor:Rene Sanchez
Circulation:36,685 Daily
42,064 Sunday
Circulation Ref:[1]

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

The oldest ancestor of the modern paper was the Democratic Advocate, an anti-Whig, pro-Democrat periodical established in 1842.[2]

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.[3]

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.

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. The Advocates 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

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The Advocate . 2023-04-24 . Louisiana Press Association . en.
  2. Web site: The Times-Picayune The New Orleans Advocate WorkNOLA. 2020-09-06. www.worknola.com. en.
  3. Web site: The Advocate History . theadvocate.com . 2016-04-22 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160425131759/http://theadvocate.com/help/162826-75/the-advocate-history.html . 2016-04-25 .
  4. http://manshiptheatre.org/about-manship-family.asp "History of the Manship family"
  5. Web site: Weber. Jeremy. La. daily remains advocate of free press. 2020-09-06. Inland Press Association.
  6. Web site: WBRZ. The Advocate newspaper buys historic New Orleans newspaper. 2020-09-06. WBRZ. en.
  7. Murphy, Paul. "The Advocate overwhelmed with subscribers, leaving some waiting on papers ." WWLTV. October 5, 2012. Retrieved on October 10, 2012.
  8. News: Hagey. Keach. Times-Picayune of New Orleans No Longer a Daily. May 24, 2012. The Wall Street Journal. May 24, 2012.
  9. Web site: New Orleans Times-Picayune Faces Deep Cuts, Will End Daily Publication . Mirkinson . Jack . May 24, 2012 . Huffington Post . May 24, 2012.
  10. News: Georges signs letter of intent to buy The Advocate . March 25, 2013 . The Advocate (Louisiana) . 2013-03-26 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140106040307/http://theadvocate.com/home/5450322-125/georges-signs-letter-of-intent . January 6, 2014 .
  11. Web site: John Georges hands Advocate publisher's reins to Dan Shea. theadvocate.com. 2016-04-22.
  12. Web site: 2019-05-21. How The Advocate conquered New Orleans (and most of the rest of Louisiana, too). 2020-09-06. Poynter. en-US.
  13. News: Advocate staff. 'A perfect fit': Advocate purchases Gambit weekly, bestofneworleans.com. The New Orleans Advocate. April 9, 2018. 2018-04-12.
  14. Web site: Gambit staff. The Advocate purchases Gambit and BestofNewOrleans.com. bestofneworleans.com. April 9, 2018. 2018-04-12.
  15. Web site: The 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Local Reporting: Staff of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.. April 2019. pulitzer.org. en. 2019-04-26.
  16. Web site: Oregon Court Of Appeals Ruling Upholds State's Nonunanimous Juries. Wilson. Conrad. April 10, 2019. opb.org. en. 2019-04-26.
  17. Web site: The Advocate wins first Pulitzer Prize for series that helped change Louisiana's split-jury law. Advocate Staff. April 15, 2019. The Advocate. en. 2019-04-26.
  18. Web site: Tilting the scales series: Everything to know about Louisiana's controversial 10-2 jury law. Advocate Staff. The Advocate. en. 2019-04-26.
  19. Web site: From ACLU to NRA: Campaign for unanimous juries targeted Louisiana voters across the spectrum. Simerman. John. Russell. Gordon. November 7, 2018. The Advocate. en. 2019-04-26.
  20. Web site: 'It's time': Louisiana House backs letting voters decide on controversial jury verdict law. Simerman. John. May 14, 2018. The Advocate. en. 2019-04-26.
  21. Web site: Louisiana's The Advocate purchasing The Times-Picayune. The Associated Press. Associated Press. 2019-05-02. ABC News. en. 2019-05-02.
  22. Web site: Times-Picayune, nola.com bought by Advocate's Dathel and John Georges to ensure 'strong' news company. Advocate staff. 2019-05-02. The Advocate. en. 2019-05-02.
  23. Web site: A new day for The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate: A letter from the editor to our readers. Peter. Kovacs. June 30, 2019. 2019-07-12. NOLA.com.
  24. Web site: Mike Dunne, Veteran Reporter in Baton Rouge, Dies at 58 – Editor & Publisher Magazine . www.editorandpublisher.com . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20200122231955/https://www.editorandpublisher.com/news/mike-dunne-veteran-reporter-in-baton-rouge-dies-at-58/ . 2020-01-22.

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