Pressure of Truth
The news, with the spin made visible.
Outlet profile

NOLA.com / The Advocate

U.S. center-left

Owned byJohn and Dathel Georges (Georges Media Group / Georges Enterprises), a Louisiana private business family
FundingPaid digital subscriptions, print circulation, advertising revenue, and philanthropic grants (more than $2 million raised since 2020 to fund reporting positions)
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

The Advocate's oldest ancestor is the Democratic Advocate, an anti-Whig periodical founded in Baton Rouge in 1842; after several name changes and mergers it became Louisiana's largest daily newspaper. The Times-Picayune, founded in New Orleans in 1837, is one of the oldest newspapers in the American South and was long controlled by the Newhouse family's Advance Publications. In 2012, Advance slashed the Times-Picayune's print schedule to three days a week and shifted focus to NOLA.com, prompting The Advocate to launch a competing New Orleans edition. John Georges—a food-distribution and entertainment entrepreneur—purchased The Advocate in 2013 and in May 2019 bought the Times-Picayune and NOLA.com outright from Advance Publications for an undisclosed price. The two properties merged on July 1, 2019 into a single daily print newspaper (The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate) and a unified website (NOLA.com). The outlet also acquired the alternative weekly Gambit. Facing declining ad revenue, the company introduced digital paywalls in late 2019 and expanded philanthropic funding, growing grant-funded reporting positions from 4 in 2020 to 24 by 2023. Media-bias raters (Media Bias/Fact Check, AllSides, Ad Fontes) consistently place it in the center-left to lean-left range, with high marks for factual accuracy. Opinion and news coverage during the Trump second term has tended to highlight negative impacts of federal policy on Louisiana, particularly on healthcare and federal spending.

Sources

  1. The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate – Wikipedia
  2. The Advocate (Louisiana) – Wikipedia
  3. John Georges – Wikipedia
  4. John and Dathel Georges purchase Times-Picayune and NOLA.com – NOLA.com
  5. How The Advocate conquered New Orleans – Poynter
  6. NOLA.com Bias and Reliability – Ad Fontes Media
  7. The Advocate – Bias and Credibility – Media Bias/Fact Check
  8. The Advocate Media Bias – AllSides
  9. Getting to 'yes': How NOLA expanded investigative reporting with philanthropic funding – Local Media Association
  10. The Louisiana local who bested one of America's biggest media companies – Columbia Journalism Review

Profile compiled 2026-07-03; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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