By Felix Gillette

December 19, 2008 | 12:59 p.m

Andrew Kirtzman, the former NY1 and WCBS-2 political reporter, has landed an advance of more than $250,000 from the Harper imprint of Harper Collins to write a book about the Bernard Madoff scandal, Keith Kelly reports today in the New York Post.

Mr. Kirtzman, who previously wrote "Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City," left WCBS-2 back in April--apparently, one of the growing class of experienced newsmen and women let go by local stations in New York over the past year.

"Experience for a long time in this business was an asset," David Diaz, a former award-winning reporter for WNBC, who now teaches journalism at CUNY, told the Media Mob back in May. "Over the last 8 to 10 years, it's become a liability. The longer you're on the air, the more money you make. And the longer you're on the air, the more you want to exercise your own independent judgment about the validity of stories. Generally speaking, there has been a move toward younger reporters who don't cost as much."

So what will the experienced local news gatherers do if they're not reporting for their erstwhile stations?

Working on books seems like a popular option.

Last month, Rob Morrison--the onetime war correspondent for MSNBC and NBC News and former anchor of Today in New York (who left WNBC-4 in May) told The Observer that he recently finished writing a children's book called Happy the Cat, about his wife and her cat ("technically, my step-cat," said Mr. Morrison) and was shopping around for a publisher.