The Day the News Left Town

[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Katharine Seelye]
In Louisville (KY), the Courier-Journal, which was bought 20 years ago by the Gannett Company, announced in December that it was pulling the plug on its bureau in Hazard (population 5,000) and two others in the state. They are the last of the newspaper's once-robust statewide system of bureaus, all of them gone now except for one in Frankfort, which is the state capital. Newspapers across the country are retrenching, redeploying their employees and resources while they try to ride out what they hope is a temporary slump but one made all the more worrisome as readers and advertisers migrate to the Internet. These strategic decisions, about what to keep and what to cut, determine which regions and which issues receive attention and which do not. The Hazard bureau is closing just as the coal-mining industry is resurgent and mine safety issues are back in the news.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/media/30hazard.html
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