Let’s not call this a trend. Not yet, please. In April, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the paper that championed civil rights in the South in the 1950s and ’60s, announced that it was moving Cynthia Tucker, its Pulitzer-winning columnist and editorial page director, to Washington and replacing most of its editorial board.

It became clear, too, that national and international issues would no longer be a priority on the paper’s op-ed pages. “We have moved to a different kind of editorial that’s much more about community issues and less about, ‘let me opine on national issues,’” editor Julia Wallace told The New York Times.

It’s a stunning development, and one I fear is contagious: this notion that regional newspapers—and the AJC has been among the best nationwide—should reflect only local concerns. If ever columnists could help to make sense of the world, it is now, as papers continue to shrink news holes for national and international coverage.

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