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This article discusses the continued decline of available jobs for cartoonists in the U.S. Frequent reorganizations are not unusual in the news industry but, unlike reporters, photographers and editors, editorial cartoon jobs are increasingly left unfilled or are eliminated entirely after a cartoonist leaves a paper. Media consolidation, newspapers folding, tightening budgets--all have contributed to the erosion of viable outlets. Bottom-line mentality and a concern for slipping circulation can drive publishers and editors to fear controversy of any sort. many editors would rather not risk irritating readers to begin with and quickly fold when uproar somehow manages to land on their desk. Far worse, at least to some cartoonists, is the editor who insists on watering down the commentary in order to be equal and balanced, altering content to such a degree the point of the cartoon is lost. Given the job market, it is the rare cartoonist indeed who resigns on principle. More often they are pushed out. One bright spot over the years has been family-owned papers that, whatever their circulation, often had a local cartoonist on staff as a matter of civic pride. Yet even among independent papers with a long tradition of editorial cartooning, the squeeze is on. Whether or not they can find a full-time job, most cartoonists still continue to draw. I he majority of people getting published today have cobbled together a career of sorts, freelancing, doing cartoons on the side, or working for a newspaper or magazine in other capacities with the opportunity to get in an occasional cartoon. Even if they have been cut loose by a paper, many scrape by with freelance work while continuing to provide material for their syndicate. A few have never worked for a newspaper, instead building up a full-time job through syndication.

This article features the latimes.com, the redesigned Web site of Los Angeles Times newspaper. Perhaps the most significant turning point in this new venture came this summer 2005, when editors who had spent their careers on the print side were asked to venture into the digital world of journalism and think about how to attract more readers. Even after an earlier, much-publicized redesign, latimes.com looked like the paper did. The front-page stories of the newspaper, mostly foreign and national news became lead stories on the homepage of the latimes.com. Web visitors could find little on the site that was not lifted directly from the paper's pages. Latimes.com, which is fifth among U.S. newspaper sites in the number of visitors it draws, generates revenues that run into the tens of millions of dollars and draws 5.5 million unique viewers a month.

The author ponders on the demise of journalism and the significance of the newsroom of the newspaper "The Republican" in Springfield, Massachusetts. He asserts that the market for clear and sharp writing about current events is unlikely to disappear. He claims that editorial leaders at majority of daily papers in the U.S. failed to keep up with the pace of technological change. He adds that solid reporting and realistic storytelling are thriving despite varied methods used to deliver journalistic work.