In the 1970s and 1980s, the Greensboro, N.C. News & Record was a great daily.  Four sections daily - most locally produced. 
   In the 1980s, it expanded into a metropolitan paper - derided by a local weekly as “The Eleven County News & Record” or the acronym “TECN&R.”  It printed five regional editions - and had bureaus in adjoining counties of the 11.
   When I had a portfolio review there in Sept. 2010, it had a robustly-staffed newsroom - even as the overall economy died.
   Since then, it was bought by Berkshire Hathaway - and has been through at least three big downsizings, two in the past year.  It had entire levels of middle management downsized.  Its current directory looks like a high school paper.  And it got gutted to two, sometimes three, sections daily - largely cut and pasted from the wire.
   Pitching something to an editor there this past month, I was told it now really is only the TWO county News & Record - far down from when a local weekly ridiculed it as the ELEVEN County News & Record!  This county - among those 11 - it basically now no longer covers, that editor told me.
   An appreciable percentage of ad space now is a Berkshire Hathaway real-estate ad.  Needless to say, you can’t get high ad rates from yourself!

Photos from this then-recent Tea Party rally were a big part of my portfolio review.
Greensboro, N.C., Apr. 15, 2010.