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As news organizations reduce their staffs and spend less time and money reporting in-depth stories, many journalists worry about the future of local investigative journalism and the extent to which the public will be exposed to hard-hitting news happening in their own backyards.

Some public radio and TV stations, however, are finding a way to help fill the void.

Just last week, KQED Public Radio said it will be partnering with the Center for Investigative Reporting's California Watch to produce more investigative stories taking place throughout the state. Colorado Public TV announced a similar partnership with Colorado Public News at the end of last month.

The journalists involved say these partnerships underscore the value of collaboration during a time of uncertainty in the industry, while giving the stations an opportunity to produce local investigative stories that they wouldn't otherwise have the resources to report on their own. ...

After a year of holding off on purchases, consumers are ready to start spending again, but they're still not feeling financially secure and their spending habits have changed, said Betsy Frank, Chief Research and Insights Officer for Time Inc.

One thing that's changed: Spontaneity has dropped out of the shopping process -- everything is a "considered purchase," preceded by research, said Frank.

She described the results of Time Inc.'s consumer attitudes survey at a Poynter conference Thursday called "A Post-Recession Advertising Strategy: Where Will the Money Go?"

Advertisers are even more interested in what consumers are thinking than in the past because they are so concerned with high-yield ad spending. Even as the economy improves, one participant warned, media companies shouldn't assume that ad spending will increase.

Time Inc. has done four surveys of consumer attitudes during the recession...

Inspired by The New York Times' stories listing 100 things restaurant workers should never do, we wondered what 100 things journalists should never do.

We've been publishing on Twitter these 100 things journalists should and should not do. We hope you'll tweet your own suggestions there, using the hashtag 100Things (#100things), or you can post them as comments to this article so we can all track the ideas.

Justin Vick has published his own list of 100 things newspapers should not do, with specific things reporters should not do, editors should not do, photographers should not do and more.

The most retweeted of the 100 things will be part of the 100 "should"s and "should never"s we'll publish below.

As of Wednesday, we've seen hundreds of tweets to #100things and received some e-mails and Facebook messages with them as well, including...

...

"Daily Show" producer Ramin Hedayati spends his morning flipping back and forth between the "Today Show" and "The Early Show," glancing at major news sites and political blogs and reading The New York Times. When he gets into the office, he scans through news shows recorded on the office's 13 TiVos and looks for glaring inconsistencies, misleading reports and humorous soundbites.

While watching Sean Hannity's coverage of an anti-health-care-reform rally at the Capitol last week, he knew something wasn't quite right. "I remember saying to myself ...'There couldn't be a more beautiful day for this rally.' Then all of a sudden it went to cloudy footage," said Hedayati. "Hannity used footage from Glenn Beck's 9/12 rally to make his rally look bigger ... We were surprised that no one else caught it."

Hannity responded last week to the show's uncovering of the inconsistency, saying the video switch-up was an "inadvertent mistake."

While its touts itself as a comedy show first and foremost, "The Daily Show" is also an unabashed media critic and ombudsman of sorts that exposes journalists'  wrongdoings and shortcomings.

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is not really in the news business. Yet, as the Associated Press noted in an internal document earlier this year, the two organizations do compete for readers when news breaks.

The AP focused intently on Wikipedia in a document describing its "Protect, Point, Pay" digital strategy, noting, "Its pages are designed to catch traffic, provide key information and then send users on their way to deeper engagement on the subjects they're interested in."

So the AP wants to create something similar: "news guide" pages that appear high in search results and direct users to its content. The idea is that people will come across these pages and use them, rather than Wikipedia, as "a focal point for discovery of authoritative sources of news."

Considering how much thought the AP has given to Wikipedia in assessing its own digital future, I wondered what Wales thought of this "news guide" idea.

Wales discussed why people use Wikipedia to learn more about news events and what would probably happen if the AP created a "news guide": Wikipedia contributors would probably link to them, too.

I caught up with Wales by e-mail. Here's our exchange, edited lightly for AP style (which, I realize, is kind of funny in this context).

John King will be replacing Lou Dobbs, who announced Wednesday evening during his broadcast that it would his last on CNN after 30 years with the cable news network.

Dobbs did not disclose his plans, but did acknowledge that political "winds of change buffeting this country" contributed to the decision.

The longtime anchor said he has been urged by media, political and business leaders to "engage in constructive problem solving" more directly.

Read more to learn why CNN chose King.