What's worse: knowing that in a few weeks or months, you will no longer have a job or not knowing whether you will or won't?

The second should be less stressful since there is still hope for a favorable outcome. On the other hand, the first instance at least has certainty, which allows the soon-to-be-unemployed to begin correcting the situation. Not much consolation there, admittedly, but in these crazy days when no profession or line of work is immune to cuts or closings, you take what you can get.

If you've kept up with the news about the local news business, you will understand such muddled contemplation, fruitless as it may be.

The women and men who work at this newspaper and the one we Bulletin people refer to as “;up the street”; are in a jam. It appears that the two publications that have competed long and hard for news and ad dollars are about to be consolidated.

Or not. Therein lies the anxiety. Those of us who work in the communication trenches—at keyboards and computer screens, on the presses and other machinery, on delivery trucks and mopeds, in ad sales and online services—are in limbo, our prospects unpredictable.

There are numerous scenarios, but mostly they involve one or both being sold to new owners or merged, leaving Honolulu with a lone daily newspaper.

Anti-media meanies contend that a single newspaper isn't such a bad thing. After all, both papers cover the same events and spew the same propaganda, and with the Web, there is no shortage of news sources, they say.

Well, news is news, so it follows logic that coverage will be similar in many instances, but being a rabid consumer of both, I see differences in content and approach.

As far as Web sources, news on the Internet by and large comes from the people who also put ink on paper, or is initiated through their efforts. Peering into the future, there will be mutations of what's called news but, for now, that's the reality.

The Star-Bulletin is a lean operation, a reflection of the enormous cost of putting out a newspaper in a complicated media market that flash-evolves continually, that's exacerbated further by a crummy economy.

In our hearts, most of us would like to see both papers stay in business because we keenly understand how competition stimulates news gathering. Yet we also understand the economics, maybe more so than civilians, because as insiders, we've seen the changes unfold, the difficulties multiply.

I don't hear a constant swell of whining in the Bulletin's newsroom, nor do I hear about a great amount of yowling from the good people up the street. I'm not saying there aren't complaints and carping and bellyaching, though the situation surely warrants the reaction.

To be frank, that is the nature of the journalist-beast anyway, a characteristic that's a good fit. Because to ask questions is to find answers, and to complain is to want solutions and unveil the sources of dissatisfaction in the community served.

Cynthia Oi can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).