The only reason most of us have for reading a local newspaper or paper's website is to obtain the local perspective. From a local reporter or columnist who has a history in the area and can report at a deeper, more knowledgeable level than Joe Blow from ESPN.

The downward spiral continues…

Perhaps I should simply buy the Miami Herald and a few shares of Yahoo stock for my Dante Stallworth news.

And not to go off on a tangent here, but why is your editor disrespecting George Thomas and the readers? I'm one of the few that buys the print edition a few times a week. Why even bother having an NBA beat writer? The decision not to send George on the Cavaliers' brief West Coast road trip was pure amateur hour. You probably have more invested in your upcoming road trip with your daughters than the Beacon Journal has invested in the sports department.

Sad state of affairs all around. I gotta get out of Ohio. Got room in the trunk for me?

This story involves a player who plays on the Cleveland Browns, yes? A high-paid football player who was probably going to start. Evidently, he killed a guy. Possibly criminally. In the old days, local reporters would have been burning the midnight oil to get to the bottom of this. The phones would have been ringing off the hook. More than likely, somebody would have even taken a plane ride down to Miami. If not somebody from the Beacon Journal or the smaller newspapers, then somebody from the Plain Dealer.

But now? A combination of smaller budgets and, much more importantly, a sense of general apathy and laziness running rampant. Why dig when others are going to do the digging for you, and then you simply steal their material, duplicate it, and then give it a feeble local angle.

Bottom line, Yahoo Sports should not be scooping all of the locals regarding impending criminal charges to be filed against Stallworth. Newspaper columnists bring in the readership, but the newspaper reporters are supposed to do the grunt work and bring in the news. Not anymore. To me, this is very sad.