by: Christine Haughney | The New York Times

As the staff at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans applied their well-developed hurricane-reporting skills last week, it was not just flooded roads and power failures that they contended with. Hurricane Isaac struck the region a month before the paper is to cut back print publication to just three days a week, lose part of its newsroom staff and merge into a new company with the Web site Nola.com.