Sen. Paula Dockery and Rosemary Goudreau

Florida newspapers, once so full of journalists of real substance and consequence, are rapidly shedding or shrinking their community voices -- their editorial boards.

It's all part of a foundering American newspaper industry, and the great shame of it all, says Rosemary Goudreau, is that opinion writers are increasingly the casualties of choice in today's newsroom.

"Editorial boards today are one-half to one-third the size they were just a decade ago," says Goudreau, a 32-year veteran newspaper woman and former editorial page editor at the Tampa Tribune.

"They are missed, too," she says. "Editors and publishers tell me that all the time. A newspaper's opinion is the mirror of a community. It reflects where we've been, where we are and where we're going."

To facilitate what she calls "a restart to the conversation," Goudreau and her partner Rosemary Curtiss will launch a new media company, a free online niche publication they call Florida Voices: The State Opinion Page.

Curtiss was formerly publisher of the Tampa Tribune's Pasco edition.

Says Goudreau, "We are all about opinion, we won't be presenting news."

She claims the site will launch by the end of November, ultimately offering a lineup of 12 columnists. Right now, she says, "we have seven -- all journalists from across the state, plus a state senator who has a journalism education. I'm being very deliberate in getting a stable of politically diverse people."

Florida Voices columnists signed up and ready to go are --