• Forbes, Tuesday, September 2, 2008 9:30 AM

The years that followed Katrina have been tough for New Orleans and its paper, the Times-Picayune, owned by Advance Publications. Thanks to its baptism by fire, the paper is now well-positioned to cover Gustav or any other natural disaster in the region.

Katrina pushed the newspaper to embrace the Internet before its peers. Seeing page views jump from 700,000 a day to 30 million during the storm "made instant converts out of even the most reluctant of us," says an insider.

The Times-Picayune has also been deep in all aspects of the recovery story, thick with information vital to struggling residents. And it has "kept up that kind of rich, detailed reporting since Katrina." The result is a deep bond with the community and sections "fat" with advertising from local grocery stores and mom-and-pops.

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