A Bygone Era: A Look Back at the Washington Post’s Coverage of Prince George’s County
Amid last week’s layoffs, The Washington Post let go of its only remaining reporter covering Prince George’s County and the Route 1 corridor.
It was the end of an era of local news coverage spanning more than five decades, a period that once saw a bustling bureau in Upper Marlboro and the dedicated weekly section, Prince George’s Extra.
This push began in 1974 when the Post, on the heels of the Watergate scandal, expanded into the D.C. suburbs to compete head-to-head with the region’s smaller dailies and weeklies.
In those years, the full-page display ads from suburban car dealerships and department stores were a major source of revenue for newspapers in boom times, while classified ads provided a solid floor during slow periods.
The Prince George’s bureau was located at 14402 Old Mill Rd., Suite 201, a site chosen because it was steps from the county courthouse and administration building in a town so small that county employees once sent a petition to try to bring a McDonald’s to the area, as one-time bureau chief Eugene L. Meyer wrote.
By the late 1990s, the Post started to pull back. Department stores were consolidating — reaching their peak in 2001 — while Craigslist and eBay undercut classified ads. The paper ended the Prince George’s Extra section in 2009.
In 2011, the Post closed its Prince George’s County bureau, just one year before the Hyattsville Wire started. The Prince George’s Gazette, which had been owned by the Post, closed in 2015, while the Prince George’s Sentinel closed in 2020.
Hyperlocal journalism remains alive, as newer publications experiment with different business models, including nonprofit grants, sponsored events, paid referral links, and subscriptions.
But the layoffs at the Post serve as a stark reminder that an entire era of local news has passed—and while it will survive in new forms, it will never again look like it did in the Post’s heyday.
Help the Wire grow in 2026!
Make a one-time donation or become a regular supporter here.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!