CTV News picked the collapsing economy as the top story of 2008. I wrote a feature looking back on how we tanked.

CTV.ca did a round-up of the top political stories of 2008, along with the major environmental headlines.

The Associated Press considered Heath Ledger leaving this mortal coil to be its top entertainment story of 2008 (I wonder if CP did a roundup of top Canadian entertainment/culture news. I did a rather crappy one on Toronto).

CP's poll of editors determined the coalition deal that sprung from the botched economic update as the top news story of 2008.

CP named Stephen Harper as the top newsmaker.

The BBC constructed a feature of its most-read stories of 2008.

CBCNews.ca's Greig Dymond took a pop-cultural look at 2008 in journalism, touching on both the U.S. and here. He particularly didn't like the CNN "hologram." :)

Eye Weekly's Marc Weisblott has a Toronto-centric look at the year in media, while his colleague Kate Caraway has a slightly bigger-picture look (written in keeping with Eye's theme that 2008 was a fucked-up year).

Here New Brunswick's John Mazerolle had an amusing satirical look at the year's top stories.

Newslab.ca offered up its top 10 posts on Canada's media in 2008.

PBS's Marc Glaser had his Top 10 MediaShifts of 2008.

And Bill Taylor, formerly of the Toronto Star, offered these thoughts on going from the staff pool back to the freelancing life in his look back at 2008:

I stopped working this year (hey, I told you this would be all over the map). On a formal basis, anyway. After 23 years at the Star, I fumigated my desk, gave away my plastic shark and leech mascots and resumed the freelance career that I first pursued here between 1982 and '85.

I'd forgotten how scary freelancing can be.

You turn down a single assignment and immediately become convinced that you've burned all your bridges and will never be offered another. What I'd started out regarding as early and at least semi-retirement has turned into a fear-fueled treadmill.

Nah, not really. I love what I do. I've always regarded journalism as not so much a job as an incurable itch; the constant urge to communicate. So – and it's by no means the first time – I'm exaggerating.

The London Free Press's Larry Cormier bemoaned how the year of cuts meant that journalism in this country and the U.S. (where things have been worse) have led to less robust journalism:

Whatever else 2008 becomes known for -- and the economy will no doubt play a starring role in history books -- it will also be a year in which journalism in Canada and the U.S. turned less robust. This is especially true of journalism's foundational activity, reporting. The result is that, along with our pension funds, equities and net worth, the quantity and quality of what we know about the world we inhabit got poorer over the past 12 months.

The numbers tell part of the story. In April, Torstar announced it was eliminating 160 jobs, 122 of them at the Toronto Star*. As he departed this week, editor-in-chief Fred Kuntz left a paper less vital than the one he took over just 26 months ago.

* Mr. Taylor would have been one of those 122.

Media companies and their news organizations are in the midst of an unprecedented convulsion. And it's ironic that, in a news environment that has seldom been so rich, journalism's capacity to report has never been so challenged.

It's very much in keeping with history that news outlets adapt to new technologies and delivery platforms. It happened with the arrival of the telegraph, radio, television, cable and now the Internet. The newspaper you're holding or the website you're reading has seen many iterations to meet changing consumer and advertiser preferences. But as more readers, listeners and viewers expect to get their "news" for "free," the depth of the reportage we get is declining.

The quality of the journalism we receive is only as good as the number of boots we have on the ground, worldwide, at every level. We can't hope for a good grasp of the fate of the Canadian military mission to Afghanistan unless our reporters are there alongside our troops. We can't expect to understand the machinations of a prime minister or the opposition parties without a strong press corps on Parliament Hill or at Queen's Park. We can't fully understand threats to our drinking water or the efficiency of city hall without strong reporters.

News websites can adorn their pages with videos, slide shows, blogs and myriad forms of interactivity, but they're no better than the quality of the journalism they begin with.

Reporting is king. All the rest is merely packaging, technological enhancement, or what Salon.com writer David Weinberger calls a culturally deafening "echo chamber."

At a time of historic importance and increasingly sophisticated spin, rock-solid reporting and feet-on-the-ground journalism isn't just important to the corporate bottom line. It's crucial for informed and enlightened public discourse. Look for ways to support it.