As Linnell explained how a merged press gallery bureau could provide national coverage to all the mastheads, the interviewer asked him how such a move could be justified, when the individual voices of each publication would now be replaced by one voice on national issues.

He responded by saying that it was about cutting out duplication to save money, and highlighted his arguement by pointing out that it was the fifth time that day he had been asked exactly the same questions on the subject by different ABC journalists.

The news from ABC management on Monday that up to 10 per cent of staff are to be axed, representing around 400 jobs, will be devastating for those directly affected. But the impact of those cuts is likely to be amplified for their audiences, because they appear to be coming from the areas that can least afford to take a haircut - the regions beyond Sydney and Melbourne.

Despite promising to reduce the number of middle managers, ABC managing director Mark Scott has said the cuts would mean an end to local Friday editions of the 7.30 program, shutting down the Adelaide television production studio, and winding up regional radio posts in Wagin, Morwell, Gladstone, Port Augusta and Nowra.

Instead of outlining a clear strategy to streamline national content where duplication is often rife, management has instead seen the cost of producing local content and targetted it for savings. But we need only look at the media landscape in Canberra to see what sort of impact those decisions are likely to have on the much smaller locations about to lose their local service.

In the ACT, the relatively robust media landscape of four commerical television newsrooms, an ABC television and radio unit, as well as the Canberra Times and a handful of commerical radio stations, has been whittled down to one newspaper, the ABC, and one remaining commercial television station that doesn't even present its news from Canberra anymore.

As soon as their licencing conditions allowed, the commercials quickly scaled back their local news content, for the simple reason that it is expensive to produce.

Yet relatively resource-hungry national and international services such as News24 that have sucked energy and funds from regional and rural areas will be allowed to continue, as will a number of niche programs with tiny national audiences, while vast areas of the country - including some of our biggest cities - are to lose a large slice of their local content. There is little point in developing cutting-edge digital platforms, if there's nothing worth putting on them.

While it has not exactly set the local news agenda, the local 7.30 bulletin plays an important role in covering Canberra issues in depth that are of little interest to interstate media representatives. The local 7pm news bulletin often carries mostly national and international news, with a couple of local stories dotted in between. If the ABC loses its main television platform to cover local stories in greater depth on a Friday night, who else will tell those audiences about the Mr Fluffy asbestos saga, an issue that has devastated the lives of more than a thousand people? Who will interview the ACT candidates on the eve of a territory election, other than The Canberra Times or perhaps WIN TV, and who will ask "why?" when mistakes occur at our city's most important hospital? Not journalists in Sydney or Melbourne.

The ABC is not now immune to the cuts that have swept through all media organisations. But it is possible to cut costs without obliterating local services. Fairfax Media has over the past five years reduced its headcount by 3010 people and slashed operating expenses from $2.2 billion to $1.6 billion, yet through its embrace of digital platforms it has today a bigger audience than ever before.

The trick is to honestly evaluate the worth of all the content that is being produced, be prepared to walk away from content that provides little value beyond what is already in the market, and focus on creating content that is of the greatest value to the local audience - in line with the ABC's charter. We are yet to hear such a plan from ABC management.