The punchline basically wrote itself this afternoon. When madison.com ran a story announcing, “As many as 15 newsroom jobs will be eliminated at the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times in a cost-cutting move,” I pointed it out to my co-newsie Erik Greenfield.

Then, after a beat, we spewed in near-perfect unison, “They’ve got 15 jobs left to cut?”

Nobody else in our news room laughed, and the wise crack hung uncomfortably in the air. Whereas the place might have been occupied by two or even three more people as recently as a year and a half ago, at the afternoon’s peak, Erik and I are now the only denizens of the news room.

And neither of us actually found it all that funny.

I’ve said before that black humor is a crucial defense mechanism of mine, but to be perfectly honest, I’ve had quite enough crappy news this past couple of weeks to overwhelm that first line. I’m thirsting, almost desperate, for some kind of good news — something just the least bit positive. A lot of folks are. My psyche needed to hear that the local media’s in for another round of “re-birth pangs” like Glen Beck’s grasp on reality needs a couple tabs of ecstasy and a hit of acid.

I’m not the only one whose sense of humor is being tested by the continued decline in the state of journalism. Jack Craver, a young UW J-School grad working to make a name for himself as the fly-by-night blogger “The Sconz,” recently called it “sad and pathetic [that] a politician’s spokesman celebrates the decline of the press by highlighting its inability to investigate his boss’s malfeasance.”

Craver was referring to an editorial by Cap Times editor emeritus Dave Zweifel, who first laid into Governor Jim Doyle’s staff for their evasiveness on a recent open records suit and a few rather flip remarks that accompanied it. Zweifel notes, “Doyle spokesperson Lee Sensenbrenner sarcastically remarked he was “surprised” that The Capital Times had the ‘resources’ to file a lawsuit.”

Perhaps just a little too close to home for comfort, Mr. Sensenbrenner.

In the fight for truth, the journalistic ideal has always climbed into the ring with one hand tied behind its back. Now more than ever, truth is a business proposition that just doesn’t pay out. When someone cuts you a check, they want to buy your loyalty, not to the truth, but to them.

Needless to say, there’s not a lot of pay in my line of work. The real money’s in spinning the truth, or manipulating it, or trying to make it up entirely. As the number of working reporters in this country wanes, we’re finding ourselves at a greater and greater strategic disadvantage based on numbers alone.

Most reporters don’t get into it for the weird hours, either. Nor do they enjoy the high stress levels and the constant deadlines. Some of us enjoy the omnipresent outrage and criticism our work can generate, but we’re the exception, not the rule.

Most do it because they’re in love with the ideal, but when an ideal’s all you’ve got , you can burn out quickly. That’s where grizzled veterans are crucial in a news room — editors, news directors, colleagues that have been doing the job for decades and have the war scars to prove it.

A real veteran is almost impossible to miss if you’re paying attention. They’ve got an answer for every question, a contact for every agency and a story to defuse any situation. While a rookie has to rely mostly on cunning, education and gut instinct, good news vets have a seemingly depth-less body of experience and a nigh infallible bullshit detector to add to any news room’s arsenal. They’re walking proof that no disaster is the end of the world.

Except in today’s Modern American Mediascape, grizzled veterans are going the way of the dinosaurs in most news rooms. The blessing of their experience bears the curse of their pay grade, marking them with bulls-eyes for the paper pushers in charge of pulling the trigger.

It’s easy to draw a direct link from the distressing decline of the media to the growing instability of the health care debate our nation is deadlocked in right now. So I will. Time and time again, town hall meetings on the issue — intended as a respectful forums to promote a healthy public discourse for the benefit of us all — have been overrun by screaming, incoherent yahoos intent on winning their arguments, not through rational argument, but by out-shouting the opposition. Most of the time these people are pumped so full of misinformation and cliches and catchphrases, they have a hard time even grasping the issue at hand.

One has to wonder whether that woman would have made her remark about how the government needs to keep its hands off her medicare if she’d read a newspaper in the last couple decades.

Just the other week, Wisconsin’s largest newspaper cut more than 70 employees from its news room. Among those who departed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel against their will was Steve Walters, the paper’s Madison Bureau Chief for more than a decade and my “Intermediate Reporting” teacher at the UW Journalism School.

The penultimate news veteran, Steve is legendary for his ability to identify any of the hundreds of people who inhabit the state capitol by their first name on sight. I learned more from him than I did in entire semesters of college, and I consider him a mentor or sorts, though I’m sure I’m not the only one.

The name of my blog even stems from a favorite saying of his. Amid endless lessons and brutal writing critiques in the bowels of Vilas Hall at eight in the morning, Steve’s passion for his line of work was plainly evident to his students as he recounted old tales from the field. Eyes shining, he would tell us, “Everybody’s got a story they’re just waiting to tell. Your job is all about finding it.”

To hear that this colossus of journalism had been unceremoniously kicked to the curb was like taking a physical blow to the chest. If there’s a positive side to be found, it’s that he was (not surprisingly) able to land on his feet with a gig as a senior producer for Wisconsin’s public affairs television station. Knowing Steve Walters is still up in the state capitol comes as a relief of sorts.

But with yet another round of buyouts, then layoffs, on the way to Madison’s newspapers, I’m left wondering which pillar(s) of the journalism community we stand to lose next. I’m grateful for the occasional exposure I’ve had to these pillars and the lessons I’ve learned, but in no way do I presume to have absorbed all they have to impart.

I think I share a sense of alarm with many of the other reporters in my generation. While there will almost certainly be young reporters whittled away in the ensuing layoffs, it’s the older generation that’s going to grow thinner with every cut.

If the torch must be passed between generations, we’ll take it, reluctantly, and continue the march to the best of our abilities. But there’s no denying that the fight for truth will be hampered as more of our number fall.