If your structure is as such:
-root
--Locations
---Dept1
----News1
----News2
---Dept2
----News1
----News2
----News3
At the --Locations level you put a CMSListMenu that is filtered by
CMS.MenuItem (Page) so it displays all your Departments.
Then create ONE page template for use in all the departments and add a repeater webpart on the page. Important, DO NOT SET the Path property, only the
Document Type Filter to use
CMS.News. By default if the Path property is null, it selects the current node and all nodes below.
If you wanted to display all the departments news items on the Locations page, leave the Path property blank and filter out by
CMS.News (so no departments show in there) and maybe give them a search box.
The beauty of this is you only need one page template that dynamicaly changes based on the node (department) selected. You could also display the departments name (assuming you have the page named the same) by using the
{% CurrentDocument.DocumentName %} macro. So as you add more departments, you click add New Page and select the News page you created already and in a matter of about 15 seconds, you're done.