• Poynter, Friday, July 27, 2012 3:09 PM

The owner of the New Orleans Saints, Jim Benson (along with a group of investors), has offered to buy The Times Picayune, but has been rebuffed by Steven Newhouse, who heads the paper's parent Advance.net.

Andrew Beaujon puts the offer in the context of the New Orleans paper's recent controversial decision to move from daily to three-times-weekly publication, reporting that U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana also urged Advance to sell. 

Vitter writes of Advance's plan to concentrate on its website: "You have a terribly inadequate digital platform which has actually gotten worse since your announcement. The new format has been universally panned (and I agree). And this is reflected in the numbers. As a single member of our Congressional delegation, I actually have far more Facebook followers than your whole enterprise."

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