When it was economic, there was lots of local news. That kind of news by definition cannot be copied; nobody else is writing it. The papers that are surviving t

When it was economic, there was lots of local news. That kind of news by definition cannot be copied; nobody else is writing it. The papers that are surviving the digital age are the ones with massive scale. Yes, the New York Times does good reporting, but that's not the only reason it's alive. It reports on things that a huge number of people care about. Those issues will keep getting at least substantial attention, if not the level they used to. On the other hand, lots of small rural places deciding, say, whether to frack near their river, don't get the kind of insights into the problem that they used to.