LilaTovCocktail posts here bringing to our attention that not only the Plain Dirty Dealer, but other of our established news organizations - in this case NPR radio - are cutting back their reporting.

NPR's budget relies in part on income from its philanthropic endowment - which NPR had invested in the stock market - to provide annual funding for the NPR programs. That endowment has tanked...

On the other hand, the Dirty Dealer relies on funding coming in the front door from current advertising - and that income stream has withered up as money has gotten tighter and tighter.

Roldo, on Realneo, has reported on the cut backs on local TV and by the Dirty Dealer

What these trends produce is a reduction in news coverage precisely at the time when analysis of our global economic collapse and national political transition is arguably most important.

QUESTION: Is NOW a tipping point time during which the internet’s evolution will accelerate because the net is the most cost effective, most widely distributed system to collect and disseminate news? I suggest that it is.

We are all “witnesses” to the shrinking commercial reportage. So we have a heightened responsibility looming…because a vibrant and healthy society requires news and criticism.

Bill Callahan, Susan Miller, Roldo Bartimole, George Nemeth, Thomas Mulready, Ed Morrison, Jill Zimon, Gloria Ferris, Mary Beth Matthews, Norm
Roulet, Bill MacDermott, and all the other committed local reporters in NEO – you won’t be getting any richer soon, but you will be shouldering a larger responsibility to provide accurate, honest information and analysis to the community.

Your efforts are appreciated, and your continued efforts will, I believe, lead to an entirely new, dynamic, model of journalism.