McClatchy shutting down its Cairo bureau?

McClatchy's Cairo bureau is being closed on a temporary basis, if not longer. Hannah Allam, McClatchy's Cairo bureau chief, reported on her blog she is taking a one-year leave of absence.

I'm about to begin a one-year leave of absence to study in the States, I just got engaged, and I'm not sure where Baghdad fits into my future, given all the personal upheaval as well as the precarious state of the newspaper industry.

Allam will participate in a one-year Nieman Foundation program at Harvard. From her blog she left open the possibility she may not return. No word from McClatchy as to a Cairo replacement.

I have noted serious honesty issues in Hannah Allam's reporting here and here.

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Is Allam's departure part of a trend? David Westphal, McClatchy's former Washington editor, left McClatchy earlier this year and has not been replaced. And as the US moves toward victory in Iraq, McClatchy seems to have lost interest in covering the war -- is Baghdad the next bureau to close?

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The dishonesty of McClatchy's Hannah Allam
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