Washington Post shuts down big city bureaus

The Washington Post, one of America’s major newspapers and the title that broke the famed Watergate scandal in the 1970s, is to close its bureaus in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Like other US newspapers, the Post has seen a steep drop-off in advertising revenue and circulation in recent years, a function of both the recession and the proliferation of free content on the Web. The Post Co.'s newspaper division, which includes the flagship title as well as a number of smaller papers, lost US$166.7-million in the first three quarters of 2009. The six correspondents who work in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago will be offered reassignment, while three news assistants will be retrenched. Read more: Washington Post