The Shrinking Mainstream Media

ABC News will become a shadow of its former self:

As part of the deep cuts announced this week at ABC News, the network plans to close all of its physical bureaus around the country except Washington and halve the number of its domestic correspondents.

ABC News President David Westin confirmed in an interview Friday that the network's ranks of bureau correspondents, which currently number several dozen, would be cut in half and be replaced with "digital" journalists who would be expected to shoot and edit their own stories.

“We will have as many total journalists as we do now,” he said.

Although the network will keep a minimal staff presence in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Boston, it will shut down its bricks-and-mortar bureaus there and ask its remaining employees to work from the local affiliates. The Washington bureau will remain open, but its size will be substantially reduced.

Does anybody still watch the nightly news shows? I'll bet I haven't seen one on ABC, NBC, CBS or CNN in years. I do watch Special Report on Fox nearly every night, but the Big 3 (or Big 3 plus little CNN) don't get any attention from me.