Other places to get shrimp

I read this T-P article about Louisiana seafood restaurants a bit bemused at the disconnect between the headline:

New Orleans restaurants seem to have recovered after the BP oil spill

And what the text actually says.

Oysters are still unavailable at some po-boy shops and seafood joints that used to feature them prominently. Calamari, lobster, scallops and mussels are staples on menus where they never were before. And those reasonably priced local shrimp, crab and oysters? No one knows what will happen to those once Louisiana fishers return to the waters in earnest -- or, for that matter, if it becomes clear that they won't return at all.

It's difficult to find a New Orleans area restaurateur dependent on local seafood who believes the crisis is over.

"Is the oyster industry back to normal? No," said Drago's owner Tommy Cvitanovich. "Is Drago's back to normal? We're about as back to normal as we can be."

"It's still very much a battle," said Kathy Williams, owner of K. Gee's in Mandeville. Williams signed the lease on her seafood restaurant's building on April 26, less than a week after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded. "For six weeks we had the sign in the window saying, 'Coming Soon. Oyster Bar,'" said Williams, whose family used to own Bozo's, the storied seafood house and oyster bar in Metairie. "I still don't think we've recovered from that, because we've only recently been able to get oysters."

Nothing there indicates to me that these businesses have recovered or even "seem to have recovered" from the oil disaster. I understand that the businesses themselves have an interest in emphasizing the positive (i.e. the fact that there is any seafood at all) from a marketing perspective but I fail to see why it is the headline writer's job to assist them in driving public perception at the expense of transmitting the facts of the story.

Compounding the confusion is the fact that the print edition headline conveys a much truer sense of the article.



Do NOLA.com's editors read the articles they place online?

Brett Anderson's story is also notable for this nugget from Ken Feinberg.

On Sept. 4, a small group of local restaurant professionals met in Baton Rouge with Kenneth Feinberg. At one point the Gulf Coast Claims Facility administrator asked a question.

"He was like, 'Can't you get seafood from someplace else?'" recalled Wendy Waren, vice president of communications for the Louisiana Restaurant Association, who was present at the meeting. "People at the table just gasped. We're like, 'Are you trying to put a nail in our coffin?'"

"I told Kenneth Feinberg, 'Locals want to eat local fish, and they know what good fish tastes like,'" said Pearson, who was also attended the meeting. "'The quality of seafood here is different than the quality of seafood in other places.'"

Feinberg's quote is strangely reminiscent of BP flack Randy Prescott's statement over the summer that "Louisiana isn't the only place to get shrimp." Although that's certainly a coincidence. Everyone knows Ken Feinberg doesn't have any interest in defending BP that anyone ever talks about.