Perhaps no government organization gets covered more cynically by the media than Milwaukee County, ever since its pension scandal. But now county supervisors have their own media outlet: a monthly hourlong program, “Inside the County Board,” aired on WISN-AM 1130 and moderated by their public information manager, Harold Mester.

Mester is former news director for Clear Channel’s six radio stations in town, including WISN. He’s also on a Clear Channel “community advisory board,” where he broached the idea of a show examining issues relating to county government.

“With Harold’s background in radio, it’s a good test case to see if this type of programming is viable,” says WISN program director Jerry Bott, whose station airs the show at 9 p.m. on the first Sunday of each month.It’s dirt cheap to produce. WISN charges nothing, the county provides all the content, and Mester runs the sound board while shows are taped.

On the first show, in early March, Mester interviewed Board Chairman Lee Holloway,then moderated an 11-minute debate between liberal board member Marina Dimitrijevic and conservative Joe Sanfelippo over solutions to the county’s structural deficit. Last came an interview with Pat Jursikon her crusade to preserve the Hoan Bridge and extend the Lake Parkway. “It’s my goal to get participation from 100 percent of the supervisors,” Mester says. And while he says he’ll ask tough questions, “I want to debate the issues – not people.”

Supervisors relish the opportunity to talk to constituents without a media filter. “People have been looking for alternative media sources,” Dimitrijevic says. Adds Sanfelippo: “We can’t effectively govern just by three-second soundbites on TV.”

The partnership with WISN is a bit ironic, given that the liberal-leaning board is often a foil for the station’s conservative talkers. “It’s my understanding they intend to represent the viewpoints of all County Board members,” talk show host Mark Belling says. “If it becomes a forum for Lee Holloway, I guess I’d be concerned.” Besides, he sniffs, “ it’s not exactly a prime-time slot.”

To judge by the first show, listeners will get an in-depth examination of issues they’re unlikely to find anywhere else in the mainstream media. But the discussion tended toward dry, inside-baseball delivery and abstractions. Part of what journalists offer – and was missing here – is the ability to enliven a story so it becomes compelling to a wide-ranging audience.

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The tanking economy hasn’t spared business publications. At the Business Journal (full name: The Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee),seven people out of 37 quietly left last fall. The departures included two of the 14 editorial employees. By this spring, though, the editorial staff was back up to 14 (though this might include an intern), and the newest addition, Stacy Vogel Davis, is also a Web reporter. “She’ll be doing Web stories about a third of her time, which is new for us,” says Editor Mark Kass.

Kass won’t confirm last fall’s staff purge, but the masthead shows it also included five people in circulation, advertising and administration. (Circulation has since added two staffers, getting back up to its original size.)

But Kass did acknowledge the paper has dropped the post of managing editor. It’s been vacant for two years since Robert Herguth, recruited to the role from the Chicago Sun-Times, left after less than a month. The Business Journal has retrenched in other ways, canceling a glossy lifestyle supplement, Executive Living, in late 2008.

Though revenue has likely declined, circulation keeps rising – contrary to disparaging rumors. “2009 was our seventh straight year of growth,” Kass says. “The number is now up around 12,000.”

Meanwhile, the former Small Business Times dared to reinvent itself – as a glossy renamed BizTimes Milwaukee, relaunched in November 2008.

“If you had told Publisher Dan Meyer and me what was going to happen to the economy, we probably wouldn’t have had the courage to go through with it,” says BizTimes Editor Steve Jagler. But he has no regrets about the biweekly’s gamble. “It gave us a better product,” Jagler says. “We took a haircut in 2009 like every other media outlet. But we did not lay anybody off.”

BizTimeshas been ramping up its social networking on Twitter and Facebook. And both publications offer a free, daily e-mailed digest of stories. But while the Business Journal tends to rewrite them into terse, wire-service style, BizTimes often publishes press releases nearly verbatim.

On paper, BTM’s14,000 circulation surpasses the Business Journal (where Jagler once was managing editor), but the latter has mostly paid circulation. BTM uses “controlled circulation,” sending it free to targeted business owners. Surveys for The Media Audit show the Business Journal far outstrips its rival in pass-along readership, with 160,000 readers an issue compared to 33,000 for BTM. Although they deny it, you can bet each publication is tracking those numbers – and hoping to gain on the other.