The owner of Chicago's City News Bureau, The Chicago Tribune, has announced that it will cease operations on January 1st 2006 and most of its news gathering activity will be transfered to the Tribune's 24 hour news website.

The decision was made because the Tribune felt the bureau had become a "competitive disadvantage". Managing editor James O'Shea explained the Tribune's position as follows: "Our competitors were taking stuff off the City News wire and putting it on their Web sites ... In a competitive world, where we need to be much more competitive on the Web, we felt we had to retool our operations and serve Chicago Tribune readers."

O'Shea announced that thirteen new positions would be available at the Tribune website and City News staff would be welcome to apply.

In a post entitled 'R.I.P. City News Bureau' Steve Yelvington draws attention to the importance of the departure of City News; it was one of the first cooperative news agencies in the US, is famed for having been a training ground for some of the country's most renowned and talented journalists and for being the first to report on many important stories.

Source: Chicago Tribune, yelvington.com