Washington Post Shutters Last U.S. Bureaus

Another sad chapter in the story of the shrinking print media in America. The Washington Post - one of the most important and powerful American newspapers ever - announced that it is closing the last of its U.S. news bureaus to save money. The Post has shed several hundred reporters and editors in the past three years. Just last week many were let go from washingtonpost.com after the Web site team and print team were consolidated. Now, the Post is left with covering the nation all from the Washington, D.C. metro area after shuttering the Los Angeles, Chicago and New York bureaus. I was asked by a county official a couple of years ago during a NACIO workshop on media relations what I thought the future holds for newspapers in America. I said then that I thought your regular city-based daily newspapers would shrink and focus more on local issues instead of trying to cover the world. This is what is happening as newspapers continue to close bureaus in suburbs and eliminate delivery areas.