There are going to be more stories like this one about the impending job cuts at the Baltimore Sun (and if you saw the last season of The Wire, this hits home with you as being as true to life as anything) and this and what that means is that blogs are going to have fewer and fewer news sources out there. With fewer and fewer reporters out there doing to legwork, writing the stories and interviewing people, that means the non-traditional outlets that amplify and analyze (namely, what we try to do) are going to have less material to draw from.
We try to support publications like McClatchy, and we're going to support as many of the smaller and more journalistically independent sources as we can, but the bottom line is--with fewer journalists out there, the politicians are going to get away with more bullshit. The cuts at the Baltimore Sun are happening just as corruption charges against the mayor of Baltimore are just now coming to light--who's going to be there to uncover the transgressions of your hometown politicians?
The end of the hometown newspaper is coming, but who knows when it will get here?
--WS
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