KTVU Channel 2 has aired an in-depth report (link) on how the demise of newspapers in the Bay Area has put democracy in peril. The story quotes journalists distancing themselves from TMZ.com founder Harvey Levin, who was invited to the Berkeley J-school to give a lecture.

The story also mentions News Plink, a site that delivers news to handheld devices such as iPhones and Blackberries. “I would have thought that all newspapers would have, all news outlets, Seattle PI included, would have moved towards a model more like that, but they didn’t seem to do it,” founder L.D. Kirshenbaum remarked. “So I thought, somebody had to.”