Awhile back, we started a list of Idaho journalists who left that profession, but not the state, to take another kind of job. A whole lot of those jobs have involved working as spokespeople for a government agency or a corporation.
Need to start working on comparable lists for Washington and Oregon. Notably, with the news that Washington's top-placed political reporter, David Postman, is leaving the Seattle Times (where he's been doing some solid blogging) and journalism, to go to work for Paul Allen's Vulcan, Inc. - media relations.
As newspapers seemingly circle the drain, where else will all those journalists go? More to the point, where will we get actual journalism from?