Annapolis Capital Punishment

We need to take the pulse of The Capital and check on its health......Is it just me, CP wonders, or is something quietly in the works at The Capital? For example, although not a fan of the Sports section, CP has seen a major league shift into use of wire services and purchased stories from other news media. A similarly eyebrow-raising change seems to be occurring in the Health section. The website has also been drastically modified but that is not as surprising or as much of a concern. Is it just me?
Change is part of a newspaper’s existence, but one wonders if these are the result of money-saving measures undertaken by the new owner. What does this mean to readers and to the local community? In terms of health care, for example, will this lessen the importance and involvement of the two local medical centers? CP wonders.
For example, the Sunday the 15th Health Section had a stand-alone with a light story about the Five-Second Rule, but there is a mix of local and wire stories in the package. The major art could come from anywhere but the boy in the secondary photo is a local kid. All the quotes are from local people around the county. The editorial staff must have thought some were so funny that they repeated comments made by Dentist Woody Wooddell and police officer Jenn Cary-Crews in the "quote of the week" section later in the week.
On Sunday the 22nd, there is no stand-alone Health Section. Though it has its own logo and color art, it's folded inside the Lifestyle Section. The main story - all the stories - are wire service stories, as is the color art. On the cover on Sunday the 29th, now apparently a permanent sub-part of the Lifestyle section, Tom Muha’s column is local of course, but the overwhelmingly large photo is purchased as are the two stories. The “news” is about Lindsey Lohan. Yikes! Don’t we see enough of her everywhere else, even when we do not want to see her? The local columns are secondary.
In the past, Health has gone with wire stories and art, or if a national story was big, it went with that. But, turning Health into a wire service only section means all the local health/fitness professionals have one less local outlet to talk about what's new, interesting, etc. in their area. That means when there's a spike in resistance to an antibiotic in the hospitals, we'll hear about it from a wire story, but we won't have quotes/photos from the local hospitals about what is being done locally. If AAMC gets a new diagnostic machine, it might make the city news or its own magazine, but will it get coverage in The Capital to explain how it works and who will benefit?
Maybe the advertising department wasn't focused on getting advertising from that sector, but this is an area that What's Up Annapolis seems to be working on. CP would guess that the local hospital folks have taken note.
Is it a part of the belt tightening going on? CP has been told that subscription to the Lexis-Nexis news service was cancelled recently. Most newspapers and p.r. firms use that to access global newspapers archives around the world. Are other services being eliminated or scrutinized? Stay tuned.