/ 25 November 2009

Washington Post to close US bureaus

The Washington Post is closing its bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York as the money-losing newspaper retrenches to focus on politics and local news in the nation’s capital.

”At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it’s necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the countries politics, policies and government,” the paper’s top editor, Marcus Brauchli, wrote in a memo to employees that was obtained by Reuters.

The bureaus will close from December 31, Brauchli wrote in the memo.

The news comes after the Post told several employees at its website that they would be laid off too, and follows several rounds of buyouts in recent years.

The Post, like nearly every other US newspaper, has been battered by falling advertising revenue and circulation as readers get more news online for free.

With a circulation of more than 582 000 copies, the Post is the fifth most read daily paper on weekdays, according to figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. It is the third most read Sunday paper, with paid circulation of more than 822 000 copies.

During the past four to five decades, it has made a franchise of covering national politics and government from the White House to Capitol Hill.

Unlike other big national papers including News Corp’s Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Gannett’s USA Today, it limits most of its distribution to the Washington metropolitan area.

More recently, it has been trying to cut costs as ad sales disappear. It also is facing more competition from new news outlets, most notably Politico.com, run by two former Washington Post reporters, and staffed by plenty of other ex-Post workers.

Many US papers from the Boston Globe to Tribune Co’s Baltimore Sun have closed bureaus around the country and around the world as they try to save money. Many experts say papers have a better chance of surviving if they stop trying to cover the world and report more local news.

While none of the Post‘s reporters in those bureaus will be laid off, three news aides lost their jobs, the memo said.

Still, Brauchli wrote, the Post will cover the nation.

”We will continue to cover events around the country as we have for decades, by sending reporters into the field,” he wrote. – Reuters