Since when does a major U.S. newspaper deem it more important to cut costs, rather than have a necessary established presence out in the world? Well, since now it seems.

"Our reporters took enormous risks for many years to try and cover the world for our readers," said James F. Smith, the Globe's foreign editor.

Granted, nowadays newspaper networks and partnerships are well-organized, and digital technologies mean that papers don’t need to have a reporter present in order to get information on an international topic.

Yet this symbolic closing down is representative of the new situation newspapers are facing now: they would rather cut costs and obtain widely accessible cheaper information, than earn less money and provide a quality-based service.

"This is part of the diminishing ambition on the part of American newspapers,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "For 150 years you could measure the quality of a newspaper by how many bureaus it had and how broad its sweep was, not how many city council meetings it covered."

We agree. There’s also the possibility that we are nostalgic of a model that has changed, and that there really is a lesser need for newspapers to have foreign bureaus?

The Boston Globe has made the choice, as did the Baltimore Sun last summer, to privilege newswires over reporters, budgets over quality, to "secure the resources required for local coverage and for journalism that has the most direct impact on our readers," said Globe editor Martin Baron in his memo.

Source: Boston.com