By Michelle McKee

The ax has been falling this week at the Discovery Channel as up to 30 people have reportedly lost their jobs due to the failing economy.  David Lohr, a long-time advocate for the missing on his Criminal Report Daily blog, is among those to go.  While it is not the first shake up to go down at Discovery, this one is a major one, and it seems counterproductive to Discovery’s goals to get rid of a journalist and investigative reporter of Lohr’s caliber.  Advertising revenue will be lost if the blog goes down, David’s large fan base will look elsewhere to find their information and, most importantly, the families of those with missing loved ones will have lost an important venue with integrity and crediblity from where they can reach out to others.

This is a major disappointment to readers, and a major setback to the genre of honest and forthright true crime reporting.  No one knows, of course, which direction Discovery and their subsidiary brand, Investigation Discovery, will go without the high-quality people like David Lohr that have been axed, but it almost certainly will not be upward.  Those who are of a mind to express their opinion over Discovery’s cuts can go here to do so.
 
Whether it will do any good remains to be seen, but it certainly can’t hurt to let the powers-that-be know how their readers and viewers think and feel about the decisions that have been made this week.