I just moved from Tampa back to the Quad Cities, and signs of dying local TV and newspapers are obvious. Pick up the Quad-City Times or Moline Dispatch and they’re so thin they only line a couple of bird cages. Look inside and you see mostly syndicated pieces. What’s the point? I might as well go online. Even the Sunday Chicago Tribune is a shell of its former self, it seems.

In TV, long-time popular local anchors are taking pay cuts or being released when contracts run out at the number one station. At the last place station the anchors are definitely low-budget. I was news director at one of the stations here, and when I left the business 11 years ago, they were headed toward being a “one-man band” shop with no videographers, despite my kicking and screaming. Judging by the news that you see now on all the stations, the trend toward lower viewership is taking a huge toll on the quality of the on-air personnel and the news that we see. When you consider how bad the coverage was even with flush staffing levels, this is even more disturbing.

What’s the answer? I haven’t developed the habit yet of looking at local newspaper or TV websites. How can they be any better than the newspapers or local newscasts? If they keep cutting the staff and the experience levels we’ll just get the same thin, superficial material online as we do offline.