If you follow the media, you know it’s been a rough few weeks down in New Orleans. The Times-Picayune announced it was cutting back on its printed edition, dropping to just three days a week.

The response, as you’d expect, has been fairly strong with a lot of people questioning how a city the size of New Orleans is “losing” it’s daily newspaper.* Bevil Knapp, a photographer working for The Lens, a New Orleans-based online news site, put together a short photo essay about people reading the paper.

Now add to this a column by Times-Picayune photographer Michael DeMocker that ran yesterday, a column that speaks to the emotional toll covering the news has on journalists.

*I understand the emotional connection people have to print, but its days have been numbered for a very long time. Yes, there is a significant segment of the population who relies on the printed version because they do not have access to web or mobile editions, but that segment is shrinking every day. There will still be daily news reports, but the concern is not, to me, whether they are online or in print, it’s whether there will still be the same depth of coverage with an all or mostly electronic publication.

Mark E. Johnson

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