Iowa's Debt Will Climb

By Keri Waterhoues

Iowa's government debt has grown by almost $3 billion in the past few years and it is expected to take another hike in the current fiscal year, it is said to be partly because of Gov. Chet Culver's $830 million I-JOBS program.

According to an annual report that was just released last week by State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald. Iowa's total state and local government debt is $11.6 billion. Cities had the greatest amount of debt, with $4.3 billion, followed by schools, with $2.3 billion. State government authorities and agencies have a combined debt of $2.56 billion.

This amount of debt is going to affect everyone. This is a large amount of debt and it's sad that it's just going to get worse.

Washington Times staff cuts

By: Mallory Tandy

On Wednesday, the Washington Times claimed they will cut a huge amount of their staff, possibly by 40 percent and they only have a 370-person staff.

They are hoping to make the paper different, and have more readers. They plan on focusing national political coverage that they will go in-depth when reporting. They will focus on the papers core strengths.

I fell bad that the paper is having to make such huge staff cuts, but hopefully it will help the paper in the future in their sales.

This Just In: Radio to Improve in 2010

By: Meghan Vosberg

2009 is officially the worst year for radio. Predictions show the total industry revenues at $13.3 billion at the end of the year- a 19 percent decrease from 2008. But the radio industry will improve in 2010 or at least halfway into the year.

2010 will slightly improve. Revenues will climb from 1.5 percent to $13.5billion. This is due to the large growth in revenues from online and mobile distribution. In order to reach the predicted 20 percent increase in 2010, radio groups must use new online and mobile platforms to sell advertisers on more than one level of channel campaigns.