I like Gail Spector. She does a good job as the Newton TAB editor. It’s too bad that she’s decided to leave her post. I’ll miss her. But, the fact that she’s leaving is not particularly upsetting. People leave jobs. It happens.

What’s upsetting is the possibility, if not likelihood, that she won’t be replaced or fully replaced. Gatehouse Media is deep in debt. Companies with financial problems don’t fill job requisitions. They eliminate jobs through attrition. They consolidate positions.

It will be bad for Newton if the Newton TAB ends up with no editor or a shared editor. We are lucky to have a vibrant newspaper, with real reporters and reporting, even if it has been diminished in recent years. Blogs, even this one, are not an adequate substitute. (In fact, we often rely on the reporting of others as the basis for the our brilliant analysis.) As a simple matter of math, a Newton TAB that reflects fewer hours of editor input, with editorials that reflect only part-time attention to the city’s issues is going to be a lesser product.

I’m not sanguine.