CENTRAL, LA – After continual widespread Cox Communications outages across the city of Central, The Sadvocate announced Saturday the launch of a special printed “Offline Edition” for local residents who can no longer reliably access the news website online.
The emergency print edition, described by staff as “basically the internet from the 1990s,” features physical paper copies of trending articles being distributed throughout Central by pickup trucks and gas station counters.
“We realized thousands of readers were missing important local fake news because their internet service has been down since roughly the Louisiana Purchase,” said one Sadvocate staff member while stapling together printed copies of articles inside his truck at a local BREC park.
Residents reportedly lined up outside a local Mobil gas station Sunday morning to pick up a fresh copy of the paper featuring stories about politics, EBR schools, and to see if the Central Mayor’s traffic crash made it into the headlines.
State Representative Lauren Ventrella, whose district includes Central, was reportedly forced to drive all the way to a Starbucks in Baton Rouge just to upload her Facebook post complaining about the outages.
Hosts of The Sadvocate Podcast said they would print and mail transcripts of the latest show to anyone who would like to read it.
Cox Communications responded by assuring customers technicians are continuing to investigate the outage. Unfortunately the statement could only be sent by fax since the Cox Communications also uses Cox internet, which, in a twist of irony, was down at the time.