Jeff Jarvis spots a nascent trend in the newspaper business:

Virtually every major paper is making the shift to local coverage, often as it cuts deeper into editorial operations. Only recently, the Dallas Morning News announced it was closing its national bureaus while cutting 20 percent of its newsroom staff. It was becoming a local paper again after several decades of rising stature for its national and international coverage. More than 100 people were let go.

Similar, if less dramatic, changes are taking place at such papers as The Washington Post, New Jersey’s Bergen Record and Herald News, and the Richmond Times Dispatch. And joining them all is Gannett, the largest newspaper chain and publisher of USA Today.

“We’re going to get hyper-local,” says Tara Connell, a Gannett spokesperson.

I'm not sure what that means for USA Today, but it makes a lot of sense for other papers. I can get national and international news from a bunch of sources, and my local paper is not the first place I'd look for that stuff. On the other hand, who else is going to cover the local crime beat, or the meetings of the local county council? The national networks won't do that stuff, nor will the newswires. The local papers could do that, and they could easily do it better than anyone else.

It doesn't even have to cost that much - local reporters won't command (or even need - you might well get by with a bunch of stringers interested in specific local areas) nearly the salary requirements of a "big" reporter. It's back to the future time for local media, and not a minute too soon, IMHO.

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