When David ("Tommy") Stern bought the New Orleans Item eleven months ago, he had high hopes of uprooting the morning Times-Picayune and the evening States from their dominating position in the New Orleans newspaper field. But Northerner Stern found that Southerner Leonard Kimball Nicholson * had rooted his two newspapers as firmly as sugar cane; Meanwhile Stern's heavy investments in a bigger staff and a new Sunday edition failed to make the expected handsome payoff: in recent weeks, Stern fired or dropped 13 staffers, was reportedly losing heavily on his Sunday paper. Last week the Item (circ. 99,658) got a helping...
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