States-Item Productions

A chance encounter in an art gallery led Christopher Tidmore to dedicate much of the last twenty-three years to one of the nation’s oldest continuously published and influential African-American newspapers.

For 93 years, The Louisiana Weekly has not only stood as the most respected news source for the African-American community in New Orleans, but has spoken for the Black community up and down the Mississippi Delta, concentrating on both urban and rural challenges. From inner-city industry to countryside educational challenges, for over two decades, the common theme of Christopher Tidmore’s domestic journalistic work as Associate Editor of this newspaper has focused on the needs that unite minority communities across the spectrum.

A veteran political reporter and talk show host, Christopher also has served abroad as foreign correspondent for the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) News Service. He is also a student of American history, having written and lectured extensively on the history of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, in mid-2015, redesigning the Creole Queen’s Battle of New Orleans Battlefield tour, recounting the importance of the most consequential battle in American History after Gettysburg and Yorktown.

Christopher has served as Communications Director and a Board Member of the Louisiana Living History Foundation. Through his efforts along with Tim Pickles and others, Christopher played a key role in staging the Bicentennial re-enactment of the Battle of New Orleans. For this purpose, he helped raise over $200,000 and obtained the lease of a piece for property to create a dedicated ‘Meraux Living History Park’. A model of the January 1815 battlefield, along with its own ‘Line Jackson’ was constructed a less than a mile from Chalmette National Battlefield, and hosted 1588 historical re-enactors on January 9-11, 2015.

Christopher also has served in public outreach positions for several non-profits and issue-based causes–and as a senior advisor to two U.S. Senatorial campaigns, as well as having hosted one of Louisiana’s top political talk shows, political blogs and newspaper columns. Currently, besides his work for The Louisiana Weekly, he co-hosts a political affairs talk show on WRNO 99.5 FM (Sundays 8-9 AM, rerun on WSLA 1560 AM, Monday, Wednesday & Friday 8-9 AM).

In other work in the historical/non-profit world, Christopher currently serves as a board member of the Winston Churchill Society of New Orleans, responsible for the annual national symposium at the World War II Museum, the high school essay contest, annual speakers dinners, as well as other events.

A native New Orleanian, Christopher first developed his love for public outreach participating in National Catholic Forensics League Debate tournaments and Student Congresses. During his college years, he worked at the Leadership Institute in Washington DC, the training ground for many young activists in the public arena, and studied under the late historian Dr. Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower Center, University of New Orleans–the founder of what would become the National World War II Museum.

In his first forays into the realm of public relations, Christopher served as a press aide to Republican Quentin Dastugue’s bid for Governor in 1995 and Regional Campaign Coordinator for Woody Jenkins’s 1996 run for U.S. Senate.

Later, after serving in PR and fundraising capacities for two different non-profits, Christopher began to write columns for The Louisiana Weekly unearthing political deals that were holding back the state, especially within the New Orleans Levee Board. In the late 1990’s, Christopher launched his radio career on WTIX 690 AM with a successful political talkshow, called “Politically Speaking, Louisiana Style”. Amongst its achievements were getting former KKK leader David Duke to admit that he had not paid income taxes on the voting list he sold to Mike Foster–leading to search warrants of his home and offices, and his eventual indictment. Christopher hosted gavel-to-gavel national coverage of the opening of the D-Day Museum–and the first announcement of a presidential candidacy.

On his TV program of the same name, he moderated Louisiana’s only presidential debate with representatives of all four campaigns, explored reforms in education, and the state of the local media. By mid 2001, Christopher converted WBYU AM into a talk station and on his new radio show with partner Sidney Arroyo (and in his newspaper column), first revealed that the President of the Orleans Levee Board Jim Huey had used public money to hire private investigators to follow a member of the media and several dissenting employees of the Levee District. Later that year, Christopher published a series revealing that then-State Rep.-turned-Congressman David Vitter had a multi-month tryst with a known prostitute Wendy Cortez (nee’ Yow Ellis). This was later confirmed nationally, and Christopher appeared on ABC’s Nightline, in the Washington Post, and elsewhere for breaking the story.

This led to a statewide radio program with Louisiana Network on 14 stations across Louisiana and to several nationally syndicated newspaper columns covering war protests in Western Europe at the on-set of the Iraq War and to two series of articles about attitudes towards America in Egypt and in Russia (later in India, Tunisia, and throughout Central Asia as well).

Also in late 2002, Christopher took a leave of absence from his reporting work to serve as Communications Director for Republican Suzie Terrell in her race for the U.S. Senate. Post-Katrina, Christopher formed the news department at WRNO 99.5 FM, the state’s newest news/talk radio station. He helped conceive, with his friend Roger Wilson, a proposal called Broadway South. It would extend the state tax credits that the film industry enjoys, to live legitimate performances: jazz, opera, ballet, cabaret, and theater.

In 2007, Christopher took a break from the news and ran for the Louisiana Legislature from District 82, which encompasses parts of Uptown, Old Jefferson, and Metairie. Impressive for a first time candidate, he won 43% of the vote while being outspent 4-1.

He also serves on the Board of Directors for Crimefighters, Inc. (Louisiana’s leading Victims Rights Organization) and continues to write a nationally syndicated column for the NNPA press association, and occasionally for the UK Guardian Newspaper. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline and MSNBC’s Maddow Show as an expert political commentator.

Over the last seventeen years, Christopher has visited 53 countries. He has camped with Bedouins in the Sahara desert, rode stallions with Indian Princes across Rajasthan, fished with locals in the Arctic sea above Norway, and narrowly missed being bombed in the London Terrorist attack of 2005. In 2012, he drove from London to Singapore, across Central Asia’s Silk Road, and then again across the Australian Outback from Darwin to Adelaide to Sydney (and then by ferry) to Hobart, Tasmania. In 2014, he sailed down the France’s Canal du Midi and covered the 70th Anniversary of D-Day in Normandy and Bastille Day’s 100 Anniversary of the start of World War I. In 2019, he broadcast live from the Rock Hotel in Gibraltar and spent a month covering the impact of Brexit on not only this key outpost of the UK, but on Spain, Portugal, and Southern Europe.

Most recently on the historical front, he completed a memoir on retracing the steps of Lewis and Clark by boat and train, has led lecture tours by train across the west and by boat through the Great Lakes and down the historic Erie Canal on the War of 1812, has completed a series of lectures about and conducted upon the transCanadian rail system About Canadian confederation, and served as the keynote speaker at the Canadian Consulate-General-sponsored conference on the 300th Anniversary of New Orleans.

He has written extensively on all these topics at www.louisianaweekly.net.