UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8497627.stm

USA

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5imzcruJnp5WZ7KCFt-lL3sYYdLuw

Australia (where the bubble hasn’t burst yet)

http://www.favstocks.com/australian-lenders-learn-nothing-from-us-housing-bust-mortgage-house-offer-105-mortgages-westpack-offers-97-mortgages/1224491/

New Zealand

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-08/n-z-house-prices-rise-at-slowest-annual-pace-since-december.html

Prelude to the “double-dip” we’re hearing about?

It’s a good question though. It suggests that other economies have banking systems which are continuing to lend. Or else the stats are lying.

That’s true. One of the more irritating aspects of modern journalism’s beal bocht is the argument that free content on the internet has undermined the ability of newspapers to report the news. Well, most news on the internet is just cannibalised from other sources - very little of it is actual investigative journalism or actual informed analysis. Newspapers started going that way years ago, in order to cut costs. If newspapers got out of the cannibalised news and analysis business, and started investigating again, they might have a future. But instead of charging in order to fund the creation of content, they are charging us to read ads, cogged content, and whatever Sarah Carey shits out over the week. They need to be more like HBO and less like ITV.

Funny thing is that the internet, being all things to all people, is one of the few places where you can get informed content and analysis. It’s hard to find, but as you said, it is out there.

It would be interesting to know the number of journalists directly employed as reporters then and now. The suspicion being that rationalisation of direct costs (staff) through out-sourcing to freelancers and wire services has depleted the caacity of the IT to perform investigative journalism of its own.

Just as an anecdote, my father worked as a journalist in Independent newspapers, now retired. He recently commented that the remaining staff is tiny, occupying a few desks down in a corner of an office down in Talbot St., a far remove from the old days in Abbey St when they occupied almost that fill block between Arnotts and Easons. Of course the days of vertical integratation of corporations is gone, across all sectors of the economy, out-sourcing is king, and quality suffers as the productivity of the remaining core staff is conticually stretched to breaking point.

I’m using the Irish Times archive a lot these days, left, and the difference in the paper since Geraldine Kennedy took over really jumps out at me. And I don’t think the Irish Times has actually broken a story since she became editor. It’s all rejigged press releases and associated press or Guardian news service for the international stories.

Stopped buying the IT years ago, stopped reading it on-line last month. Like an ex-smoker though I do lapse sometimes, but only to feel disgusted afterwards. You’re right though, stop taking the drug and look elsewhere for information, there’s plenty of it out there, and opinion pieces which are more convincing and better constructed, which haven’t been cobbled together aginst a publication deadline by a freelance journalist who’s primary concern is to please their paymasters and continue to receive a stream of commissions.