Here’s today’s depressing chart about the state of journalism

[Commentary] Here are the raw numbers: In 2014, the workforce at daily newspapers in the United States was 36,700. In 2015, it's 32,900. That's a 10 percent drop --in one year! Ten years ago, there were 54,100 people working at daily newspapers; that's a 39 percent drop over the last decade. Now, yes, it is true that the ASNE numbers document only people working for daily newspapers. So, the Washington Post is included but Buzzfeed, for example, is not. There are more than 32,000 people working in newsrooms and as journalists in the country. Even so, the decline documented above is staggering; there's simply no way that the growth in online-only publications has made up for the massive erosion in daily newspapers.

No matter what you think of the media -- and, judging from polling, most of you don't think much of it -- this data is very bad news for accountability in our political system (and elsewhere). The less people watching, the lower the likelihood that attempts to skirt rules and laws get flagged. The less people watching, the more willing people are to try things they might never do if they knew someone was tasked with keeping an eye on them. The rapid decline in the number of journalists employed by daily newspapers isn't just bad news for members of the media. It's a very bad thing for society too.