[ricree]

Agreed. I can't really speak for any other area, but several of the large Chicago papers (most notably the Tribune) have been key in exposing and fighting government corruption.

While their average content isn't always that great, they are able to supply a level of investigation and fact checking that would be missed if they went out of business.

[hvs]

There's no question that newspapers often (sometimes?) do good reporting -- the Chicago Tribune is a great example of this. The real question is, are people willing to pay money for it and is it enough to maintain a business? I (and many others) would argue that the current structure of newspapers is not going to be profitable. When 90% of your content is filler from the AP or Reuters, why should people pay for it? The day of general purpose news organizations (with the exception of a few like AP and Reuters) is fast coming to an end.