After my criticism here on Monday of a Star-Bulletin editorial on the rail transit plan, I took a closer look at the newspaper’s editorial page.

The online edition still lists Mary Poole as editorial page editor, but the printed paper now describes her as “contributing editor”.

Checking around, I learned almost all of the newspaper’s editorial staff were swept out during the recent shakeup, including Poole. It’s a new ball game on the editorial page these days.

Yesterday a correction was made to an editorial published last week.

A bill that would have diverted hotel room tax revenues from county governments has died in the state Legislature.

This editorial mistakenly says the legislators were backing away from an increase in the tax rather than from the county diversion. In fact, the bill calling for the increase has been approved by the Legislature, but is expected to be vetoed by Gov. Linda Lingle. Legislators have not indicated whether they will try to override that veto should it happen.

To its credit, the S-B left the original editorial as it was published along with the correction. In the past, another Honolulu newspaper has simply corrected the error in its online edition without a permanent note of the error for the record.

And I’m told the Advertiser’s recent cutbacks have resulted in a 75% cut in the freelance budget for its popular “Kauai People” weekly, which followed a 50% cut in freelance fees. Check the PDF back issues to get a feel for the paper.

Folks involved say the little paper is not only popular but profitable, but the cuts mean they’re losing their top writers.

To replace the freelance writers, they’ll be using part of the time of their part-time Kauai-based reporter, Diane Leone, although this raises issues because much of the weekly’s copy is linked to its advertisers, lowering the bar between news and advertising.

Tough times in the news business, for sure.