There has been near unanimous support, in the media, for a law making its way through Congress that would protect journalists from revealing confidential sources. And this scribe is inclined to cheer on the bill. But there's an interesting contrary view at Slate from Jack Shafer who notes that the proposed law is not an out-and-out shield: it would simply force the government to show why reporters should be required to testify about sources - a hurdle, he suggests, that is quite surmountable.

I've written a cover story for today's Phoenix on a topic that has fascinated me for years: the lifestyle center. It is a faux Main Street - essentially the mall, gone outdoors - that raises all sorts of interesting questions about public and private space.

With the real Main Street in decline, can we really form community in a place built around brand identity? Is there something odd about living in a condo above the Gap with a view of Cold Stone Creamery? Should we be concerned that the new public square doesn't allow for anti-war protest or, even, skateboarding? Or should we be embracing a walkable, green space in the heart of sprawling suburbia?

Republican victories in gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia yesterday were striped across the nation's newspapers this morning. The GOP and some in the press were quick to label the results a rebuke to Obama.

Late-breaking results of a special Congressional election in upstate New York that went to the Dems has clouded the picture, though.

The new elizabethroberts.org is downright Obama-like in look and feel, with a tagline - "restoring hope in Rhode Island" - to match. Providence City Councilman and would-be mayoral candidate John Lombardi's site, unveiled earlier this year, also emulates the president's new media politics.

Look for more of the same, as Rhode Island gears up for its first true social-media election next year.

The chatter around the ProJo in recent weeks was that finances at the paper's Dallas-based parent company, A.H. Belo, might brighten a wee bit with the third-quarter earnings report. Those numbers were released today and, well, they could've been worse. From the Providence Business News:

DALLAS – The Providence Journal’s parent company, A.

Tom Heslin, executive editor of the Providence Journal, opened his speech before Common Cause Rhode Island last night with an amusing tale of his first reporting job at the York County Coast Star newspaper in Maine and spoke of a small abbreviation that appeared on the front of the broadsheet: THWTB. It stood, he said, for "The Hard Way's The Best."

You've seen the ads, perhaps, touting Target 12's biggest investigation yet. Here's the scoop on the story, to run at 11 o'clock tonight: it's a look at state workers, tasked with investigating unemployment fraud and phony disability claims, running personal errands on state time.

Oh, the irony.

Investigative reporter Tim White tells N4N that he's been contacted by state police, who have opened an investigation based on the station's work.

E.J. Dionne, one of the most incisive political observers in the land, will be speaking in Rhode Island in a week-and-a-half. This just in from former Brown political science professor Darrel West, now with the Brookings Institution in Washington:

Washington Post Columnist E.J. Dionne will deliver a lecture on “The Good News: The Future of Religion is Not Extremism” at 6 p.

The ProJo's long promised new design is unveiled today. And it is, in this observer's estimation, a success. Clean and sharp. It will, no doubt, provoke some grumbling from long-time readers. But they will adjust.

The larger significance of the redesign: the new look reflects the much more dramatic changes at the paper over the last year - heavy layoffs and a reordering of the paper to focus on short bursts of local news.

Amid fears that yesterday's news of plummeting circulation numbers at the ProJo could lead to more layoffs, this little tidbit in Providence Business News:

PROVIDENCE – The round of layoffs that took place last week at one of The Providence Journal’s sister newspapers was an isolated event and not part of a companywide round of job cuts, a top executive at the papers’ parent company said Wednesday.

The ProJo's daily circulation dropped 17.3 percent in the last year, as circulation at papers nationwide dropped an average of 10.6 percent, according to new numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

It was, according to the Wall Street Journal, the sharpest drop in more than a decade for the industry, as the faltering economy and the broader migration of advertising from print to the web continue to pummel print journalism.

This just in from Jim Hummel, the former ABC6 investigative reporter who has launched a non-profit, TV-on-the-web project:

PROVIDENCE - The Hummel Report is pleased to announce that it will be publishing the cartoons of noted local artist Charlie Hall on www.hummelreport.com.

"Charlie's creative genius is a great addition to the Hummel Report.

The CEO of Media General, the Richmond, Virginia-based company that owns Rhode Island television station WJAR, said in a conference call with reporters today that revenue at the station - long the market leader - has "stabilized" after a period of sharp declines. Still, revenue for the parent company took a steep decline in the third quarter.

Word from the New York Times that the newspaper will cut 100 newsroom jobs by the end of the year - through buyouts and, if necessary, layoffs.

Times executives, who chopped 100 newsroom jobs in the spring of 2008, had predicted that they would not have to slice from the newsroom this year. But "hopes for a year-end turnaround in the newspaper business have faded," the Times writes.

We don't like to flog too many events here at N4N. But for all you political junkies, this is one worth knowing about.

Rhode Island College's "Congress to Campus" series convenes October 25-27 with a series of panel discussions. Former Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr. (R-CA) and former Congresswoman Beverly Byron (D-MD) will participate in a couple of talks making a plea for bipartisanship (good luck with that).