I just went and read the Kathleen Parker column you referenced.

I don’t like the gratuitous jab at Limbaugh, but she’s otherwise right: What we’re going to lose with the death of professional journalism — especially local journalism — is the apolitical, “boots on the ground” reporting we today take for granted.

She’s essentially making the same point I am (just a bit more clearly and succinctly — I guess that’s why she gets paid to do this and I don’t): Most news isn’t political, and gleeful conservatives don’t seem to grasp the extent of what we’re about to lose.

I live in a place (Detroit) where one of the local papers just singlehandedly brought down a corrupt mayor. I don’t want that to go away. I don’t know why anyone would want that to go away. All because you dislike what some million-dollar TV airhead once said about Katrina? I mean, do you even realize how irrelevant that kind of stuff is to the actual situation here?