How a Newspaper War in New Orleans Ended: With a Baked Alaska and Layoffs

Calling a truce was not so easy, though.

It takes no time at all to pick up the bitterness among some of the laid-off Times-Picayune employees who have landed at The Advocate, and still feel that they were unceremoniously kicked aside. Or the irritation among journalists who stayed on at The Times-Picayune, and who see a streak of self-righteousness in the attitude from their rivals that journalism is somehow more pure if it’s delivered on paper every day. The entry code to a certain keypad at The Advocate’s bureau in New Orleans is, to those in the know, a vulgar swipe at the competition.

But last fall, Mr. Shea and Mr. Georges both sensed that something had changed at Advance. The Newhouses suddenly seemed open to some kind of deal.

“Literally, I spent six months with the most sophisticated people in the top of the food chain in New York,” Mr. Georges said in his office, where a double magnum of champagne sat on his desk, sent by a local banker in congratulation.

At the end, he and his wife, Dathel, had a deal. The paper and the website were now theirs.

“In a time of crisis, you can pack up and go, or you can double down,“ Mr. Georges said, comparing his embrace of a seven-day printed paper to residents’ refusal to abandon New Orleans after Katrina.

The journalists losing their jobs at The Times-Picayune are now polishing résumés, looking at their finances and gathering for drinks at the Howlin’ Wolf, a bar across the street from their office.

On the day last month when Pulitzer Prize winners were announced, The Advocate put up a paywall for the first time, limiting the number of articles nonsubscribers can read free online. With the end of a six-year battle and one big paper left in town, the journalists of New Orleans now turn to the real newspaper war: surviving in the news industry at all.