That new publication is called The Bayou Brief.

It is the brainchild of Lamar White Jr., the blogger who founded CenLamar, a progressive political site that had uncovered various news stories of interest that received significant national exposure.  Those articles includes the recent  exposure of now Congressman Steve Scalise speaking at a far right organization involving Kenny Knight and David Duke.  Also, he was also a major contributor to the Bill Cassidy-LSU controversy that emerged during the  Cassidy's race against then-Senator Mary Landrieu.  He also was involved in that David Vitter prostituion string of articles that focused upon Vitter's 1990 alleged prostitution relation of the late 1990's. .

This Bayou Brief is not just about politics, however.  White and his contributors are adding culture, music, history to the mix.  

On Thursday, I interviewed White via Facebook Live.

Below is the Facebook video and a rough transcription of the relevant conversation focused upon his new endeavor.  

Well the new website is called The Bayou Brief, the Bayou Brief not to be confused with the Bayou Buzz.   We are a non-profit 501 C 4 online only news publication that focuses on statewide issues in Louisiana, so you know, Shreveport Monroe Alexandria Lake Charles Lafayette Baton Rouge in New Orleans.  We have been publishing since June 20th so we are brand-new publication into our, I guess, now are technically our third month. And we've had a really some tremendous success--already we probably published about 30 or 40 different pieces in the last month and a half.  We've got a really good feedback stories that range from anything, you know, we wrote the story or published the story about the i-49 connection in Shreveport, about Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans.  And we're looking for for--we're always accepting new content, new writers--I can be reached at Lamar at BayouBrief.com and it's been a really exciting endeavor .  About three weeks ago I did this little sort of a statewide tour kind of kicking off the hard launch of the publication and we had tremendous reaction all over the state you know about 35 people in Shreveport about 50 people in Alexandria.

And we did a party in New Orleans that probably and I think probably 65 to 75 people showed up. 

 It's not just me writing a blog anymore, you know, of course I ran one for 11 years.   This is actually professional professional publication.  We've got an editor Eddie Weaver who comes to us from the Oxford University Press in New York.   We've put on a few people to write you know contributing writers that are paid, and we've been able to really have writers already from all corners of the state so it's really exciting. 

I think there was an appetite for a statewide publication here in Louisiana and something like this, from a progressive perspective, and I'm progressive--hasn't really been done here.  We had, of course, The Deduct Box for a while that that people really excited about--but it didn't last--because publisher passed away, unfortunately--so this is really the first statewide publication of its kind since The Deduct Box. 

Cultural content history, we just recently interviewed the writer Ethan Brown, the author of Murder in the Bayou--which is about the Jeff Davis 8 sex workers that were killed in Jeff Davis parish--whose murders have still not been solved.  We ran an excerpt of Ed Branley's new book which you can find under I think the title is the History of Gumbo or something like that.   We've added a section on food and a section on music so we are actively seeking submissions from writers who are interested in covering food or music which of course are big in the state.

We are sustained 100% by user donations so there's a there's a button on the website like to donate we accept of course as much or as little--you'd like to give--We also link to set up for recurring donors, people want to contribute some of anywhere between 10 and 40 dollars a month, We have that ability as well, and we've got several people that have already signed up to be recurring donors and that really helps tremendously for us to plan long term.

There are a few stories that were working on there's gonna be a story coming out real soon about the oil and gas litigation that's currently underway.   Recently I wrote a piece with with to two editors Leslie Turk and my editor Katie Weaver about Cameron Henry's personal financial disclosure documents on there probably will be some follow-up to that in the near future.   I think that there's some exciting content that's uh that's about to come out, some exciting content that came out in the last week.  

We had a really great guest column by Chris Tyson the attorney and law professor at LSU, candidate, former candidate for Secretary of State, about the ongoing sort of controversy, really on social media in Baton Rouge regarding contracting under the Brave program. We encourage people to check out Chris's wise words--I thought he it was a really great really great little column, the kind of commentary that needs to be heard in the state and in  Baton Rouge right now.

WATCH THE FULL FACEBOOK LIVE DISCUSSION BELOW

We encourage you to check out the rest of the interview (above) and to visit The Bayou Brief, subscribe and to contribute to the site with your donation and even your content.

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