By bloated I mean local newspapers covering national news. When small papers have newsrooms with 60 reporters, and 40% of those reporters cover national news--that's a problem.

To see evidence of this go look at your local paper. Mine writes about (not syndicates...writes) national news all of the time.

Small to medium sized papers shouldn't be doing this anymore. They should be focusing on their local communities and dominating that market.

By bloat I mean purchasing multi-million dollar printing presses in 2005 (http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-108017775.html) when you should be investing heavily in your local and online markets.

There are some claims here I'd still like links to backup.

Show me a "small" paper with 60 reporters.

Show me a "small" paper with 25 reporters covering national news.

Your local paper has 40% of its reporters covering national news?