Local newspapers have closed in large numbers across many countries.
The cause was not readership but the collapse of .
Jobs, cars and property listings had the reporting, and they moved online in a decade.
Researchers have since measured what disappears with the reporters.
borrowing costs rise when no journalist attends council meetings.
Lenders read the absence of as a risk and price it accordingly.
in local elections falls, and win by wider margins.
Split-ticket voting declines, which means national politics fills the vacuum.
None of these effects is dramatic in a single town; all of them are consistent across samples.
Replacements have appeared, though they cover different ground.
Community groups report faster than any newsroom on floods, closures and crime.
What they rarely do is sit through four hours of a planning committee.
Subsidy proposals therefore focus on that unglamorous function rather than on newspapers as institutions.
Several models exist: tax credits for employing reporters, public-interest funds, and requirements that official notices be paid for.
Each carries an obvious risk of , which is an argument for several small schemes rather than one large one.