The news keeps getting sadder for newspapers

I've spent the vast majority of my life as a hard-news reporter at daily newspapers. I've covered everything from Randy Weaver's stand-off at Ruby Ridge to the Tacoma daffodil festival, and it was largely a terrific ride. For the last few years I've morphed into a wire service and magazine journalist, and a writer of books, Websites and newsletters, among other writerly pursuits, but I still am a newspaperwoman at heart. That makes this week's newspaper developments so painful. At the same time the Tribune Company files for bankruptcy, potentially jeopardizing major papers like the Los Angeles Times, local newspapers here in Washington have hideously contracted their news sections. The Seattle Times has made the curious decision to fold local news and features together, while the Post-Intelligencer (Full discloure: I'm a former P-I reporter and still have many friends there) has folded local and national news together. When I read through them, they feel, well, like they've suffered an amputation (a topic I just wrote about for Seattle Magazine!). The news continues: The Tacoma News Tribune has shrunk their sections, too, as has the Bremerton Sun. It all feels a bit like a collapsing star. So who will cover the local news? Who will keep an eye on utitlity rate increases, the Port, those damn suburban fire districts, county charter initiatives? (one of my first election stories as a cub reporter). Blogs are great, but no way to pull such info together in a timely fashion, obviously. As the Times candidly said last weekend, sometimes "Less is less."