Charting the Years-Long Decline of Local News Reporting

By: Paul Farhi | The Washington Post

The Manassas News & Messenger survived Reconstruction, multiple recessions and depressions, assorted wars and the dismantling of Jim Crow laws throughout Virginia and the South. But the Internet was another matter.

When the 10,000-circulation daily newspaper on the fringe of the Washington metropolitan area succumbed in late 2012 after 143 years in operation, its new owner — BH Media Group, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway — said the operation was no longer viable in a digital world. The paper, BH chairman Terry Kroeger said at the time, suffered from “negative financial momentum” that his company couldn’t reverse.