If newspapers went back to reporting local happenings and stuff at the state capital....most would find new and happy readers. Their aim to twist papers into some national political apparatus just won’t work.
The "aim to twist papers into some national political apparatus” is the natural effect of the Associated Press - and it has worked (for them) just fine for over a century and a half.
"There is a need for focus on real news, not news with an agenda or news that is really editorializing," Mr. Koch said in an interview.To the contrary journalism is, was, and always will be politics. It is of course possible, and laudable, to try to be objective. It is even OK to claim that you are trying to be objective. But there is no more political statement you can make than to claim that you actually are objective.If you claim that you are objective, you claim that no one else is objective except yourself (and everyone else, to exactly the extent that they agree with you). There is no functional difference between claiming to be objective, and claiming to be wise. But journalists are circumspect about openly claiming to be wise. Claiming wisdom was the defining characteristic of the ancient Greek Sophists - and the Philosophers successfully brought the Sophists into such disgrace that “sophistry” survives as a word of opprobrium.
The Philosophers agreed that people should try for wisdom and/or objectivity - but they insisted on never arguing from the assumption of having attained either. Openness to facts and logic is the proper goal, and claiming that “the science is settled” is the negation of openness to facts and logic.