Cost concerns prompt cuts in US papers’ foreign bureaux
Posted by
Jeffrey Blyth
on 28 February 2006 at 10:32
Tags: Journalism, Newspapers, United States, War reporting
It’s not the dangers, or so it’s claimed, but the cost these days of maintaining news bureaus in places like Baghdad and Beijing that is provoking a big cutback in the foreign coverage of many American papers.
One of the papers closing down its Baghdad bureau is the Boston Globe. It is giving up the room in the Hamra Hotel for which it has been paying but which has been empty for the past six months. A spokesman for the Globe admitted they could no longer afford to maintain the necessary security.
Two other papers cutting back their foreign coverage are the Baltimore Sun and Newsday. The Sun has closed its Beijing and London bureaus. Closing the British bureau — which dates back to 1924 — was a hard decision, admitted foreign editor Robert Roby. The cutbacks leave the Sun with just three foreign bureaus – Johannesburg, Moscow and Jerusalem — each with just one member of staff.
Newsday is closing its Beijing bureau, which is one of its oldest – dating back to the early 1960s. But it has not had a staff reporter in China for more than a year. It has an office in Baghdad – but nobody has staffed it since December. The paper has even shut its bureau in Mexico City.
Tags: Journalism, Newspapers, United States, War reporting
