In a big blow to the staggering ProJo, Sean McAdam, the paper's nationally respected baseball writer, is joining the Boston Herald.

While ProJo sports editor Art Martone is also an ace when it comes to baseball and the Red Sox, McAdam's departure will leave a big hole, just because his game stories and analysis are quite a bit better than the sportswriting norm.

There's another squeeze on the news side at the Providence Journal. Here are the details, as reported in a piece I prepared for this week's Phoenix:

When the Providence Journal focuses its resources, it remains quite a good newspaper.

This was the case last week, when the ProJo did an impressive job in offering the state’s best and most comprehensive coverage of three important stories: the governor’s budget proposal; the latest developments in an ongoing federal probe of State House influence-peddling; and the release of grand jury testimony in the 2003 Station nightclub fire disaster.