Washington Post to close domestic bureaus

Posted by Emma Heald on November 25, 2009 at 10:59 AM

The Washington Post is closing its remaining domestic bureaus, the paper reported last night. The six correspondents who work in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago will be offered positions in Washington. Three news assistants will be laid off.

"The fact is we can effectively cover the rest of the country from Washington," executive editor Marcus Brauchli said on Tuesday from New York, according to a WaPo article. "We have for years been able to cover issues around the country for our readers with a corps of traveling reporters. It's more possible than it's ever been to cover the issues that matter to our readers from a Washington perspective." Brauchli stressed that the Washington post was not a national news organisation, and that its strength was to report issues through a "Washington prism."

WaPo writer Howard Kurtz described the move as "money-saving," and "the clearest sign yet of the newspaper's shrinking horizons in an era of diminished resources." He points out that it follows four rounds of early-retirement buyouts and the closing or merging of several sections of the paper. The latest job cuts were an unspecified number who worked for the paper's website.

Although the Post company overall is profitable, the newspaper division lost $166.7 million in the first three quarters of this year, according to Kurtz, and Brauchli is under pressure to cut costs. The paper is in the process of merging its print and online operations, having announced in September that the two newsrooms - which until now have been several miles apart - would be integrated as of 1 January 2010.

Source: Washington Post, paidContent