Poor little Debbie. They took her off the national beat and demoted her to local news. All for solid business reasons, of course. WaPo:

One of the big surprises for me in becoming ombudsman is that most e-mail focuses on national issues, not local news.

Yeah, a big surprise caused by butchering the Abramoff story in a way that reinforced Republican talking points, and then clamming up for a week.

This column is an initial effort to solicit comment from readers about local news. Is The Post covering the kind of local news that is relevant to your life as a citizen, shopper, homeowner, apartment dweller, parent or commuter? Are there some stories that The Post is missing?

Research among the most frequent readers of the paper shows that local, national and international news are almost equal in importance to readers. In an era of declining circulation, The Post has to satisfy all three expensive needs.

Being in the capital city of the most powerful nation on Earth means that The Post has to have a worldwide reach, but it is primarily a local newspaper that devotes about a fourth of its staff of roughly 700 full-time professionals to covering and presenting news of the District, Maryland and Virginia -- and that's not counting Business, Style and Sports staffers doing local stories.

So, local news is really the big time!

Yep, says Jim Brady. We can't just axe her; as she pointed out--in her column, too, nice--she has a two year contract. So, let's give her something she can handle...

I've seen the best minds of my generation...