Midwest transforms into missing pieces

Columbia Journalism Review reports that coverage of the Midwest is dwindling down and the core reason is because of the drastic budget cuts to newspaper organizations. Is this what our news world is coming to? It's not fair to the news organizations or to the citizens of the U.S.

We discussed in class that journalism is gathering and producing information to send out to the public so they may have the knowledge needed to be an active member of the society. If you cut out the Midwest then journalism isn't complete. As a value of the PRSA Code, advocacy is supposed to provide a voice in a marketplace of ideas, facts and viewpoints to aid an informed public debate. Leaving the Midwest out is comparable to telling readers that the region doesn't matter and isn't important enough to make the news.

Now, most cover the Midwest much as they do the Mideast, out of one major bureau (Chicago here, Jerusalem there) fed by stringers.

If people don't receive information about the Midwest, then how are they supposed to discuss Midwestern issues? Readers from the either coast side will also be lacking regional diversity. Diversity of all sorts is definitely an area that should be increased, not decreased.

Most importantly, people have a need to know what's going on beyond their direct experiences and they should be aware of things they can't directly see in means of control, security and confidence. If you cut out the Midwest, then journalism isn't complete and people are being robbed of freedom. You can't put together a puzzle when you're missing the middle pieces, so how can journalism be complete with the Midwest being cut out?