One gets a sense of haggardness amongst them. Of smart, well-enough educated journalists at work from Augusta to Bangor to Rockland, forced however by management to atomize their story writing and attention into more and more and brief stories. Flash journalism for flash minds.
With consequently dwindled or actually non-existent time allotted or budgeted for them by the station operators to spend the several weeks or more of time and effort chewing through the multiferous layers of investigation into any of the myriad thorns presently in the side of the Maine Body Politic. One brought to attention recently - inmate exile - would take weeks of reading through masses of documents hand written, typed, electronic, of conducting dozen or more of interviews calls meetings. But the results would be well worth it.
Solution: Let the media outlets farm out routine (yet vital by its very routineness) documentary coverage to Licensed Practical Bloggers or LPBs - Some percentage of the documentary coverage of the myriad of governmental and nongovernmental meetings, speeches carnivals festivals, coverage of automotive mayhem and other committee meeting coverage would be done by them.
LPB's "Licenced Practical Bloggers"? Some standard would be set and enforced by local news directors. As micro contributors, they're getting less per word; the saved money then applied toward enabling the investigative arts. Professional journalists would still keep their hands in as many of the documentary type events coverage as they pleased (so long as their investigative efforts don't suffer.)
But overall let the minutiae be covered by the micromedia, who are well positioned for it, and set our professional journalists loose on bringing to light the reasons behind the vital issues of the day, ever shifting as they are. That is a hit or miss business; all the more reason to allow greater chunks of the budget for Maine journalists to pursue their necessary arts of deliberative investigative journalism.
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