News-Record.com

First, a little background. From the N+O story:

Steve Volstad, director of marketing and communications at UNC-TV, said the station made the decision to drop the shows as a way of dealing with a shortfall in its budget.

Volstad said the public television station made the least painful belt-tightening decision possible. Other options that were discussed included cutting 12 hours of daily programming. He said the station budgets $1.8 million annually to produce the public affairs shows.

Leg Week, as it is called around Cap City, is one of the few shows in the state to give legislators gobs of face time on the tube. It is also one of the very few public affairs broadcast programs covering state government that is worth spending some time with.

More from the story:

N.C. Policy Watch director Chris Fitzsimon, a regular panelist on the public affairs program "NC Spin" that airs Sunday mornings on WRAZ, said he's particularly disappointed by the cancellation of "Legislative Week in Review."

"I think it's a big loss for the people of North Carolina who want to know what their government's doing," Fitzsimon said. "There's not enough political and legislative coverage as it is."

That pretty much nails why the passing of this particular show is newsworthy. It’s not just the loss of one program, but another step in a trend of ever shrinking voices keeping an eye on state government and explaining it to the voters.

A few years back, the journalism trade mag AJR did an article about how while the amount of money and issues statehouses were handling had risen, newspapers had cut back on their coverage.

While the trend had a momentary reversal, from what I and my colleagues see on the ground it is continuing in the wrong direction.

The state of North Carolina’s budget is $18.9 billion over the next fiscal years. The laws drafted by the legislature and enacted by the governor affect everything from the quality of the water you drink to how good your child’s education is to how much you’ll pay of college to how much you’ll pay in taxes.

With Congress so closely cleaved, the hot button issues of abortion, gay marriage, the minimum wage, etc… are being fought at the state level as well as the federal level.

Paying less attention to all that makes no sense.

Since coming up here to man this outpost for the N+R about 15 months ago, I have been contemplating a column that explains in pretty good detail how I go about my job, what the priorities for the bureau are, and why I do what I do and don’t do some things you might expect. As it turns out, I’m still figuring it out, although it’d still be a worthwhile exercise to write the column, to think out loud if nothing else.

Let me just say for the moment that it is a privilege to do what I do, and it is a charge that I take seriously; smart-alecky demeanor not withstanding. As far as I can tell, so do all the other working journalists up here.

Although there are others who hang about around the capital from time to time, the group of main stream media types who cover the legislature and executive agencies as a full time preoccupation are this lot. (link) Represented are the Associated Press, nine daily newspapers or newspaper chains, three radio outlets, three television outlets, a handful of specialty publications and one syndicated columnist.

All bring something different to the table. I’m just hoping that table doesn’t find itself with too many more empty chairs.