The times may be news-rich, but newspapers are cash-poor, facing their direst
financial straits since the Depression. Racing to cut costs as they lose
revenue, most have decided that their future lies in local news, not national or
international events. That has put a bull’s-eye on expensive Washington
bureaus.
A new president arrived from a new party. The balance of power shifted in Congress. Legions of fresh new faces showed up in the nation’s capital with new ideas, eager to upend the way the country does business.
"They’re letting go those with the most institutional knowledge, which helps reporters hold elected officials accountable," said Kevin Brady, a Republican Congressman from Texas who said The Houston Chronicle’s team in Washington shrank by two-thirds.
The year was 2000, and Cox Newspapers had about 30 people in Washington to cover the new Bush administration.
Eight years later, a similar transformation is under way, the stakes heightened by two foreign wars and the worst economic collapse in decades, but Cox will not be there to cover it. Cox, the publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Austin American-Statesman and 15 other papers, announced this month that its Washington bureau would simply close its doors on April 1.
Cox is not alone. Another major chain, Advance Publications, owner of The Star-Ledger of Newark, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland and other papers, just closed a Washington bureau that had more than 20 people.
Like a number of smaller papers, The San Diego Union-Tribune recently
shuttered its bureau, which had four people at the end. Three years ago, the
parent company, Copley Press, had an 11-person bureau in Washington, but it has
since sold most of its papers.
Those that remain have cut back drastically on Washington coverage,
eliminating hundreds of journalists’ jobs at a time when the federal government
— and journalistic oversight of it — matters more than ever. Television and
radio operations in Washington are shrinking, too, although not as sharply.
The times may be news-rich, but newspapers are cash-poor, facing their direst
financial straits since the Depression. Racing to cut costs as they lose
revenue, most have decided that their future lies in local news, not national or
international events. That has put a bull’s-eye on expensive Washington
bureaus.
Read more from the article in the New York Times