In this day and age of easy access to world-wide celebrity (Paris Hilton, Perez Hilton, etc.) and easy-access information, it's amazing that there are fewer and fewer outlets for information.

Sure, you have your Deadspin.com, and RedsReporter.com and countless other places (including TheLotD.com) to find what people think about the news, there are fewer actual sources of said news.

Months ago, my newspaper, The Cincinnati Post folded. With it went competition (if not financial, we held our own editorially, especially Keith Harrell's sports staff) for the Cincinnati Enquirer. Now we've got blogs (CincyNewsAche, Cincinnati Beacon, Buy Cincy and others) and City Beat as a alternative weekly, plus TV news and radio, but so much of that is spun off the Enquirer and a newspaper's traditional role as a leader in a community.

What is the Enquirer doing? Some thought with its monopoly sealed with the closing of the Post, they'd take on some added journalists and strengthen the product. Nope, instead they instituted cuts and any position that is vacated isn't replaced. They've used the fall of the Post as an excuse to give you less and maximize profits.

In sports, travel to almost any other similar city with an NFL and MLB team and look at their sports coverage. Most other papers have a national NFL writer and a beat writer and backup writer covering the NFL team and a similar set-up with the baseball beat. The Enquirer? Mark Curnutte handles the Bengals and the NFL, John Fay does the Reds and MLB. Shannon Russell is batted between the two. All three are fine journalists, but they've been stretched thin by the penny-pinching of Gannett, the company that owns the Cincinnati Enquirer and is the largest newspaper company in America. What does Gannett care about Cincinnati? Nothing.

In May of 2002, the Cincinnati Enquirer was like many other newspapers -- it had two sports columnists, with different abilities, insights and personalities. Since then, the Enquirer has had one voice. An interesting and very capable voice in Paul Daugherty, but one none the less. In Kansas City, the Kansas City Star has two of the very best in the business in Joe Posnanski and Jason Whitlock. Poz and Whitlock are completely different and write differently, think differently and give out wildly diverging opinions and unearth completely different stories from different worlds. The city of Kansas City and the states of Missouri and Kansas benefit from that. Fans of the Royals, Chiefs, Tigers, Jayhawks and Wildcats benefit. You are being cheated of that. For all his strengths, and there are many, Paul Daugherty is just one person. As one person, he can't write at his best 7 days a week. At best, a columnist can go three-to-four and occasionally five times a week. The Enquirer is a 7-day a week paper that thinks like a daily. That's not because of the people working there, it's the limitations they're given from Northern Virginia where that bastion of journalism, USA Today, is run by Gannett's finest.

For now, though, at least there are other opportunities. You can read from St. Louis the accounts of the Reds from John Fay in the Enquirer or Hal McCoy in the Dayton Daily News.
 If you want to read about the Ohio State Buckeyes, you can read the Columbus Dispatch, the Dayton Daily News or the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. You have different eyes looking in different places, different journalists talking to different people. You have more eyes -- more watchdogs -- watching what is going on and probing what is happening.

Despite readers being able to check in from anywhere on the globe, those days are dying. They're dying in front of your eyes. Just as BP reports a huge profit as gas prices continue to rise, newspaper companies are charging you the same price while cutting their readership. Instead of catering to those who read, the newspaper companies are catering to those who don't read -- cutting story lengths, buying out those with experience and replacing them with younger writers who will work less, getting rid of the people with institutional knowledge gained from years and years on the beat to save a buck, all while still turning a profit. We hear all the time that newspapers are dying -- they're dying from suicide from the top.

And here in Ohio, things are getting worse. Here's what Enquirer Deputy Managing Editor Julie Engebrecht sent out a couple of weeks ago to the people at the Enquirer.

Some of you might have noticed bylines from other Ohio newspapers – Columbus Dispatch, Cleveland Plain Dealer – appearing on our Local pages lately.

Some of your bylines are appearing in those papers, too. We've had a lot of breaking news lately – from Maupin, last week's Colerain fire, etc. The Plain Dealer used Jon Craig's version of Bush's visit to Dayton.

Here's how that's happening:

Last November, the editors from the top 8 papers in the state began meeting to discuss common concerns/issues. One major item that came up was that AP wasn't transmitting stories or photos from around the state we might want to use in our papers, or when they were being sent, we wanted more.

To facilitate this, the Plain Dealer set up a password-protected FTP web site where we could drop stories we wanted to share or trade. Two weeks ago, the papers began a more formal system. By 4:30 each day (more or less … I see tomorrow's Enquirer sports budget is already up), Josh Picher and I (or our designees) each post a sports and news budget of stories we think other Ohio newspapers might be interested in and we're willing to share, along with contact information for the day. When relevant, I've included business and features stories on my budget. Each budget is typically about 3 to 5 stories each long. Once a promised story has been edited, sports, local or business editors will post that story on the FTP site. We are able to send an automatic e-mail when we have breaking news; we will soon have the ability to upload photos.

At the moment, those participating most in the collaborative are Dispatch, Plain Dealer, Akron, Toledo and us. In general, Columbus is interested in our breaking news and Reds coverage, while we're looking for some additional coverage of state government and Ohio State coverage from them. In both cases, not much extra work with great benefits for our readers.

Attached are the "rules" of the cooperative:

* Papers can use the stories provided they are fully credited to the originating paper, the byline is included, as well as the appropriate dateline.
* The spirit of the cooperative is to allow other papers to use the stories and not rely on them as "tip sheets" for competing newspapers to match.
* Online, any newspaper using content from another will direct the reader to the originating paper's website so that the paper gets the benefit of the page view. Searchable databases will be handled in the same manner.
* If a paper wants to localize a story generated by another paper, a sidebar or insert is the preferred approach instead of recasting it with the local lead.
* Any paper can withhold content that is sensitive.
Please let Tom, Hollis, Josh or me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

-- Julie

I know many of you will think of this as a good thing. You'll get better coverage of Ohio State football from the Columbus Dispatch than you will the occasional AP piece in the Enquirer. While that's true, it's short-sighted. Instead, it means there will be less competition on beats. It won't be too long (but I hope it is) until Hal McCoy hangs 'em up and retires from the Dayton Daily News. Sending anyone on the road for 81 road games is expensive, and I'd bet a road trip's receipts that the Dayton Daily News will go ahead and decide it can just put the Enquirer's stories from road games up on their web site. And then, well, if they're in the middle of a busy weekend, they'll just take the Enquirer's report from a home game. And pretty soon, press boxes are empty.

Sure, the knee-jerk reaction to that by many fans is 'great.' Seriously, I get that. You hate us. We know it., you've told us. But you also count on reporters from the Enqurier and Dayton Daily News and Cincinnati Post and other places to be your eyes and ears. How does someone blog about Ryan Freel not getting enough playing time and how he feels about it? They read what Freel tells John Fay. There are only so many people who have the access, and without access, where is someone going to get the raw materials? There are some places, like Atlanta, where the traveling party is two writers. One from the local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and one from Major League Baseball's own MLB.com. So you have one set of eyes that isn't paid by MLB watching the team and relaying information to fans back home. This is sad.

With the McDonaldization of news products like is happening in Ohio now, everyone in the state will be reading the same thing, it will become homogeneous and stale. There will always be places to turn for opinions, but fewer places to turn for fact. In Ohio, we'll have our own Ohio Today, with the lack of the individual perspectives. And just like the McDonald's of food, we know it's not good for us, but we'll keep going there because it's easy.