Friday, September 19, 2008

Education Reporters get the Ax at H-L

Earlier today a KSN&C reader left a comment indicating that among the victims of the Herald-Leader's most recent cuts were Raviya Ismail and Art Jester - both of H-L's education reporters.

Raviya confirmed that she and Jester were among nine laid off in the news room.

This is the most tangible example that the Herald-leader is joining a host of other papers in making the kinds of cuts that directly impact the quality of reporting. A staggering loss of ad revenue combined with corporate greed have wrought this circumstance. Added to prior cuts its becoming pretty clear that going forward, the Herald-Leader won't be as good a paper.

As much as we all love the criticize the press, this is decidedly NOT good news. This is a loss for the community and the state.

So what's to become of education reporting in central Kentucky?

As Raviya says, "I'm not sure who is going to cover education at the HL - I'm not sure the managers know either. It's a frightening time for newspapers..."

So Raviya is off to DC where she plans to stay away from journalism for a while.

This is a very bad sign.

No comments: