There no longer is a religion reporter. There no longer is a minority affairs reporter. What has been done on Postville as of late, for instance, has been penned by Tony Leys. He's their medical affairs reporter and doesn't speak Spanish.

Where 7 or 8 staffers spoke Spanish a year ago, now there are 2. There are no black reporters and only maybe two black people in the entire newsroom.

The state's largest industry, agribusiness, is being covered from Washington, D.C., of all places, since August when Jerry Perkins left. The state's second-largest industry, insurance, is being covered part-time by an editor now that S.P. Dinnen is gone. Ditto for banking.

So it's hard to discern what Ms. Hollingsworth means when she says they've contracted to their heart and soul, and found it to be the dynamic of local information. Perhaps she means the zone editions, which suck up huge amounts of manpower to produce school lunch menus and page 1 copy like “Kiwanis Club Seeks More Members” (when was the last time Kiwanis DIDN'T seek new members).

Maybe she means education news; the paper can't seem to dish up enough on schools, regardless of merit.

These are very trying times for newspapers, and media, all across the land. Their solutions are bound to not be foolproof. But they need not be foolhearty.

There no longer is a religion reporter. There no longer is a minority affairs reporter. What has been done on Postville as of late, for instance, has been penned by Tony Leys. He's their medical affairs reporter and doesn't speak Spanish.

Where 7 or 8 staffers spoke Spanish a year ago, now there are 2. There are no black reporters and only maybe two black people in the entire newsroom.

The state's largest industry, agribusiness, is being covered from Washington, D.C., of all places, since August when Jerry Perkins left. The state's second-largest industry, insurance, is being covered part-time by an editor now that S.P. Dinnen is gone. Ditto for banking.

So it's hard to discern what Ms. Hollingsworth means when she says they've contracted to their heart and soul, and found it to be the dynamic of local information. Perhaps she means the zone editions, which suck up huge amounts of manpower to produce school lunch menus and page 1 copy like “Kiwanis Club Seeks More Members” (when was the last time Kiwanis DIDN'T seek new members).

Maybe she means education news; the paper can't seem to dish up enough on schools, regardless of merit.

These are very trying times for newspapers, and media, all across the land. Their solutions are bound to not be foolproof. But they need not be foolhearty.