Over the past few weeks, there has been some big changes happening in my life, in regards to my working situation. As many already know, newspapers in general are having a tough time, both with the sagging economy and changes in reader habits. And this newspaper company is no exception.

My position of Group Internet Editor for Sierra Nevada Media Group was eliminated due to budget cuts. I was then pulled into the Nevada Appeal newsroom to serve as City Editor, and help lead our local news efforts. It's an interesting challenge going back into a daily print cycle where I had spent so much time before.

But one big consequence of this move is that my weekly political column and blog will need to go away. My editor thinks that writing such opinions every week will conflict with my new role, and I agree with him in part. I passionately believe that the future of newspapers rests with being local, local, local. If I'm going to talk that talk, then I have to walk that walk, and my national political column just doesn't fit that vision.

It will not be easy. Politics is an addiction, and I've been mainlining the stuff for a long, long time. I first started writing political columns back in the mid-80s, and I've only had a few breaks since. I think the only solution will be to go cold turkey and just kill all my political news feeds and other sources so I can concentrate on just local news. Is there a 12-step program for this?

As for this blog, I might post occasional stuff here, perhaps dealing with newspapers and Internet, which is another big interest of mine. But don't look for much political stuff here, unless I have a relapse.

Thanks to everyone for reading and leaving comments. You helped make this a lot of fun.

This blog post by Terry Heaton has me thinking about that old issue of journalistic objectivity.

Can we finally put a bullet in the myth that objectivity really exists? We all have biases. For reporters to pretend that they don't to stay "objective" is outright dishonest.

This is one of the reasons I stopped writing news and stick to opinion columns. It's not that I can't write a "balanced" story. I can. Hell, I can write a story so balanced it could be featured on Fox News. And that's the problem. A reporter may spin a story the direction of his bias, or may do the opposite the assuage those attacks of bias from the other side.

Either way, it's dishonest and should stop. The writing would be a lot better if reporters could just honestly tell what they have seen and heard, in their own voices, biases and all. And with the interactivity of the web, we can let the readers add their own biased views to provide the balance.

One way to keep the public from turning against the war is to make sure they don't see it.

The military is cutting off access to MySpace, YouTube and other popular sites soldiers like to visit. The excuse for this is pretty lame, that their network can't handle the load. There are far better ways to handle bandwidth management than that. Combined with their new rules that require soldiers to get approval to post to blogs, the military is cracking down on one of the most important voices coming out of Iraq, that of the soldiers fighting it.

The second half of this one-two punch is that the Iraqi government is banning reporters from bombing scenes. After all, if there are no pictures, it's like it never happened, right?

This Associated Press story is only interesting if you don't consider the context.

It basically says that the Iraqi government is busy lobbying U.S. lawmakers to make sure they don't pull out. What it doesn't say is that a majority of the Iraqi parliament this week signed a petition calling for the withdraw of U.S. troops.

Kinda puts that lobbying effort in perspective, doesn't it?

If a majority of the parliament, backed by a wide majority of the population of Iraq, want American troops out, it sort of begs the question of why are we even debating staying?

What those Iraqis know is that it's the presence of U.S. troops that is inflaming the situation.