Time magazine writer Belinda Luscombe chronicles the declining number of reporters covering American statehouses in a recent article.

Luscombe's article features Connecticut News Junkie and Texas Watchdog in an exploration of the small enterprises surfacing across the country as journalists try new business models to support investigative coverage of local and state governments.

Luscombe explains:

Statehouse coverage is the bread and butter of a newspaper: unsexy and repetitive, but one of the foundations of a nutritional news diet. Unlike bread and butter, however, it can be expensive. Reporters have to monitor long, complicated funding debates — about schools and roads and health care — many of which do not result in front-page news. Uncovering corruption, incompetence or waste takes an inordinate amount of time and effort. As newsrooms and newspapers have become smaller, coverage of state politics has been among the first to get cut.

The article goes on to mention recent Congressional testimony by David Simon, a former newspaper journalist and creator of The Wire, an HBO series examining urban problems and set in Baltimore. Simon warns that as watchdogs of government decline, corrupt politicians will have a heyday. Read a transcript of that testimony, and testimony by others, here, and view the Congressional committee discussion here.

Luscombe also spotlights Texas Watchdog (links added):

The site has launched feisty investigations into state lawmakers' doings. It recently filed Freedom of Information Act requests for access to the Lieutenant Governor's calendar as well as Houston Mayor Bill White's email correspondence with a developer. Unlike Ctnewsjunkie, which casts a wide net, or sites like the nonprofit Minnpost.com, which is run by the former editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Texas Watchdog doesn't try to cover everything — or to compete with the big guns. "The other papers mostly see us as colleagues who supplement their work," says (Texas Watchdog Editor Trent) Seibert, who is based in Houston.