What’s left of the Courant’s news staff will be getting its new marching orders this week as the editors attempt to fashion a rational coverage plan with fewer reporters, editors and photographers than ever.

No doubt state coverage will be central to the new plan. It is the Courant’s bread and butter, after all. And we’ve already seen a number of  reporters stepping into coverage of state issues. No apparent loss of quality, either.

 The most interesting changes may be in the area of local news, where there simply are not enough bodies to go around.

What would you do if your conquering army had, over time, lost dozens of warriors throughout the region you were trying to hold? My guess is you would draw back from the further reaches of earlier conquest and attempt to hold the most valuable ground around your headquarters. The Courant will have to do the same.

This retrenchment has been going on for years, actually, ever since the paper abandoned the Torrington bureau set up during the Mike Waller – Terry Burke era, the peak of zoned local coverage. Now of course the contrast is stark. Bureau offices are practially abaondoned. Zoned content in the mainsheet is, for practical purposes, defunct. (Ironically, the inhabitants of that Torrington bureau — Jesse Leavenworth and David Owens — are still part of the army, and good soldiers both.)

It would be nice — more than nice, actually, more like useful – if the retrenched local coverage were  heavier on governance and local life and lighter on crime and fires. I suspect the editors know that and will make some adjustment.

The big question raised by a geographic retreat is whether readers and advertisers will take offense and/or migrate to other publications. Some recent surveys have suggested that modern folks don’t miss their local coverage that much. (Perhaps because they’ve forgotten what it’s like to have it.) My guess is that the mass circulation weeklies like the Reminders will move into the vacuum for the local advertising money, if there is any. This is no matter, really, if the Courant can find balance with its coverage plan, its costs and its revenue.

The paper’s mission is now more fully revealed. First to survive, then to serve.