I've never seen this put so well. Several years ago, after being group editor of several newspaperes based on Geraldton in Western Australia my wife and I bought a convenience store. Soon after we started (in Wodonga, Victoria, Australia) Sunday newspapers were published for the first time for general distribution. Three new papers on the same day -- and the main comment from buyers? They'd missed out the lotto results!
But a problem with the web is that so many supposedly local community sites are not for or by the community. They are mostly commercial ad-selling sites with some bits of local info which is often outdated or just wrong. It's cheap to start real local web sites. I've just started one at hastings3915.info for a capital outlay of less than $100.
Even the web sites by many of the supposedly local newspapers have no real connection with the community. One local one has a local domain name, but it goes through to a site for a bigger region and much of the content is shared with the statewide site.
News is but a small part of catering for a community, and too many local papers have forgotten that is their role. Journalists on really local papers know because they know their readers; they can't disappear back to the city.
I suspect that as ads get harder to sell the result just might be some better newspapers.
