An item this morning in the Mercury News’ political column “Internal Affairs” illustrates how much local TV stations have cut back their budgets. Used to be that it took two or three people to do a live shot. KNTV NBC 11 now has that down to one person.

Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone likes to rise with the sun — about 5 a.m. most days. But Thursday morning, he found himself up an hour earlier than usual so he could go live on KNTV to talk about the county’s historic drop in property values. 

And boy, was it lonely. Channel 11 didn’t even bother to send a reporter out for Stone’s live appearance on the 5 a.m. news in front of the shuttered Mervyn’s on Hamilton Avenue in Campbell. It was just Larry, with an earpiece, a bleary-eyed cameraman and, for a brief spell, a passing police officer who wondered what the heck was going on.

The Internal Affairs item noted what many South Bay reporters already know — that Stone is the most accessible official in Santa Clara County.

[A link to other stories we’ve posted on the VJ trend.]