When integration of schools began, the Times-Picayune railed against the federal intrusion into our way of life. Many articles talked about the amicable relationship between Blacks and Whites in New Orleans, about the excellent quality of life for Whites and Blacks, and about how the city included one of the largest Black entrepreneurial classes of any in America. It wrote about how, under White direction, Black educational and living standards had progressed over the last few decades. The editorial writers of the Times-Picayune predicted dourly that forced integration and the stirring up of Blacks by Yankees and liberal agitators would ruin one of the most beautiful and culturally rich and charming cities in the world. Integration, they maintained, would retard the progress of the Black community and threaten White standards.

After the purchase of the Times-Picayune by S.I. Newhouse, the paper gradually began to shift to the left. Integration was eventually depicted as "progress" and something that would increase "love" and "brotherhood." Editorials chastised those who opposed integration, referring to them as bigoted, hateful, and shortsighted. Integration, the paper claimed, would promote racial goodwill and lessen poverty and crime (which was then manageable). "What is the harm," the paper moralized, "with two little Negro girls going to a White school?"

As the city’s schools and government services began to disintegrate under integration and the Times-Picayune became increasingly liberal, my father — who was mildly conservative — came to dislike it. I still enjoyed the paper, and as I got older, I found myself agreeing with its racial viewpoints. I didn’t know that the Picayune was no longer a Southern newspaper, and that the owner, a Jewish refugee of Czarist Russia, resided in the New York city area.

When Newhouse died, he left a media colossus worth about $10 billion to his two sons, Samuel and Donald. Among their newspaper holdings were the Times-Picayune; the Syracuse, New York, morning Post-Standard and the afternoon Herald-Journal; the Mobile, Alabama, Morning Register and Afternoon Press; the Huntsville, Alabama, morning News and afternoon Times; the Birmingham, Alabama, morning Post Herald and afternoon News; the Springfield, Massachusetts, morning Union, afternoon News, and Sunday-only Republican.

The Newhouse empire today owns 12 television stations, 87 cable-TV systems, two dozen national magazines, 26 daily newspapers, and the Parade Sunday supplement that has a staggering circulation of more than 22 million.

When Newhouse bought the Times-Picayune, it was reported by Time magazine that he commented, "I just bought New Orleans."¹ In some ways, his statement is accurate. Newhouse and his employees could say anything they liked about any person or any issue with little fear of contradiction. Newhouse, secure in his monopoly, was free to push whatever social and political agenda he wished.

Even today, more than 25 years after Newhouse’s purchase of the Times-Picayune, many in New Orleans are unaware that a Jewish New York family owns the paper. The editorial page gives a local address and says the publisher is Ashton Phelps, a descendent of the family that once owned the paper.

When I was a teenager, just learning of the Jewish control of media, I noticed that many of the Picayune’s advertisers were Jewish-owned businesses, including Goldrings, Levitts, Mintz, Godchauxs (a French adapted Jewish name), Kirshmans, Rosenberg’s, Rubinstein Bros., Gus Mayer’s, Adler’s, and Maison Blanche. One of the biggest advertisers in New Orleans was Sears & Robuck, and Edith Stern, a New Orleans activist in Jewish and liberal causes, was Sears’ largest stockholder. I soon learned that many of the largest advertising agencies, both local and national, were under Jewish ownership and direction. These agencies could steer advertising to whatever newspaper or media outlet they desired.