FEATURED QUESTION: Journalism

I don't know about my readers and fellow bloggers, but I'm getting sick and tired of writing about all the damage BHO is doing to our nation. Any thinking person can see that damage and the dangerous path our nation is following without a constant drumbeat from me. I'm also weary of constantly writing about the dangers of Islam because that message has a "same old, same old" quality.

The above said, I've decided to return to offering a blog feature I had consigned to the dustbin during the 2008 election cycle.
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As more and more newspapers cut back their staff and even go out of business, most of us say, "Serves 'em right." And maybe it does. Nevertheless, in the March 1, 2009 edition of the Washington Post, Marc Fisher makes the following point about a reduction in news coverage in his Sunday essay (all emphases mine):

...In one hour in the Virginia House the other day, I watched debates on raising the cost of vanity license plates (the No's won), letting employers pay workers with debit cards rather than paychecks (Yeses won), and making it a felony to hang a noose on someone's property (approved). Hardly earth-shattering issues, but each has an impact on people's lives. Yet none got any press; a couple of years ago, they would have.

"The smaller the press corps gets, the more you see personality stories rather than pieces about what is at stake for people," says Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. "Smoking in restaurants is always going to get covered, but now, when we make big changes in mental health or foster care, nobody covers it. That has a real impact: It would be hard for campaigns to get even more superficial, but they might."...

[...]

..."The insiders are still getting a full report on the blogs, but the rest of us see only what we want to see instead of the news we need to see," says Bob Gibson, executive director of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia and a former politics reporter for the Daily Progress in Charlottesville.

Many bloggers say that far from being able to replace professional reporters, they actually suffer from the diminished flow of state news. "What I can't offer on my blogs is the relationships, the institutional memory, the why, the history that reporters who know the capital can bring to their stories," says Waldo Jaquith, who blogs on Virginia politics and runs a site, RichmondSunlight.com, that tracks every bill. "Newspapers can describe the candidates for governor in a more balanced, deeper way because you don't have a dog in the race. We bloggers do."

A combination of media revolution and economic collapse is dismantling our news infrastructure, especially at the state and local levels. "Someday, people will wake up to the depletion of the press corps," Gibson says. "I don't know if the result will be corruption or demagoguery, but the interests of the people are not being represented anymore."...

Read the entire article HERE.

Does Mr. Fisher's essay make a valid point? Despite the blatant slant of many newspapers, are WE THE PEOPLE losing access to information we need to make responsible voting decisions, particularly at the local level?