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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.

This article presents the views of publishers about the state of cartooning at U.S. newspapers. Gary Sherlock, publisher and president of The Journal News, said that without a doubt, having an editorial cartoonist of the quality of Matt Davies on their editorial staff has been a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace. Each day they compete with the much larger New York City dailies. And having his work in their paper provides their readers with a real different reason for buying the newspaper. His work is just that much better than the competition. Davies' willingness to go out into the community and talk about his work has been an unexpected benefit to The Journal News. Tim Kelly, publisher of the Lexington Herald Leader, said clearly, the greatest value of having an editorial cartoonist on the staff of a paper their size is the added dimension Joel Pett gives them in terms of local commentary. They all know that they can purchase the work of the best cartoonists in the country on national and world topics for a fraction of the cost of a staff cartoonist. But they and their readers cannot get the local angle anyplace else. That is why it is essential that local cartoonists draw locally. Not all the time, but a considerable percentage of the time.

The article focuses on the yearlong energy crisis experienced by the state of California. During the crisis, reporters faced especially daunting challenges in moving information across this moat. A slowly evolving system of monopoly utility regulation, with carefully documented costs and profits, had been replaced by a complex network of markets in which electricity and risk were traded like pork bellies. When utilities operated as government-sanctioned monopolies, being a vigilant reporter mainly required looking over the shoulder of regulators whose job it was to make sure that utilities kept the lights on and costs dozen. The challenge was to extract readable stories from the regulators' quasi-judicial proceedings, in which agendas read like invoices from auto parts dealers and policy choices were buried inside of alternate rulings. Many newspapers, including the Contra Costa Times, normally give only limited coverage to the electricity industry. When the energy crisis hit, the newspaper's team responded by assigning three reporters-- one from the environment bureau, one from the state government bureau and one from the business section. In 1998, California launched its aggressive move to competition. At first, things went smoothly. Then, in the late spring of 2000, a sudden jump in wholesale power costs jolted electricity customers in the San Diego area. By the fall of 2000, the power shortages that hit San Diego were spreading throughout the state. As the state's electricity system crumbled, it was easy for reporters to find victims and tell their stories. The story was portrayed as a modern-day war between states. Soon this story line was strengthened when it surfaced that owners were shutting down power plants to create shortages and trading was raising prices. Covering these dimensions of the story taxed the resources and abilities of daily papers' newsroom staff, just at a time when economic slowdowns were driving down newspaper revenue.

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.

The article focuses on how actor Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign capitalized on his celebrity to make ordinary journalism so marginally relevant to the outcome of the 2003 governor recall elections in California. Any doubts about the definition of the political media of Schwarzenegger should have been dispelled not only by his use of a late night television show to make his announcement but by his first major news conference. The last gasp of the old political media in the campaign was a lengthy article in the "Los Angeles Times" newspaper that alleged a pattern of sexual harassment by Schwarzenegger directed women in and around his movie productions. The question, is whether the media frenzy will continue after Schwarzenegger takes office. But as the Schwarzenegger governorship begins, those in the political media will also have a shot. The reporters who covered the recall campaign for most of the larger California papers tended to be pure political reporters who specialize in campaigns. But once Scwarzenegger takes office, he will face the Capitol's resident press corps, some of whose members have been tracking legislation and administrative policy for decades.

This article reports on Media Nation, a daily newspaper about the news media covering the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts in August 2004. The newspaper resulted from a partnership between the Nieman Foundation, the University of Massachusetts-Boston (UMass Boston) Center on Media and Society, and The Boston Globe. Media Nation, was published on four sequential days as a part of the Globe's special convention coverage. The paper broke news on the plight of many international reporters who found themselves without expected workspace when U.S. President George W. Bush's administration failed to fund an international press center for the first time in 20 years. It examined how Arab-language news organizations were covering the convention and the growing influence on political reporting of Hispanic and African-American media organizations. The Kovach Library and computer room at Lippmann House were transformed into a newsroom for those doing research, producing graphics, and editing the content. Seasoned news professionals directed and oversaw a staff of 20 college students from Harvard and UMass Boston. Other news professionals working on the project included broadcast veteran and founding editor of Stateline.org Ed Fouhy, Nieman Foundation senior web editor, Melinda Grenier, and former Wall Street Journal graphics editor, Karl Hartig. Nieman Fellow Doug Marlette provided a daily political cartoon.