The Dayton Daily News, for one, was a Midwest Pravda.
Actually, that’s a cliche unto itself for which I apologize.
What do we call ‘newspapers’ that print lots of words but refuse to print actual news ie facts? I’m speaking mostly of papers that purport to cover their home cities - with some scraps thrown to suburbs where the actual readership/advertising demographic resides - but refuse or actively avoid printing the unblinking details about crime and criminals? Most US inner cities are war zones abandoned after 5 pm or abandoned altogether yet their problems have been routinely ignored for decades - mostly by the very people claiming to be members of the same ‘community.’
Dayton Daily News, by the way, was all for making a brave noise about businesses and residents coming/staying within the city limits...until they built a production facility 20 mi south of those limits. Hypocrites will out.
The Plain Dealer did similarly with reference to the city of Cleveland and then built that facility along I-480. That hypocrisy was not lost on people.
All urban newspapers have done the same thing. Their reporters are urban snobs, recognizing the existence of the suburbs only at election time and in local sports coverage. As you say, At 5:00, the city empties except for the gangs, including the reporters who live in the burbs. Downtown has restaurants and loft apartments, but no grocery stores. There is no community and yet the press can only talk about the latest brain fart from the Mayor. Newspapers are dead. Unfortunately, Facebook and Twitter aren’t the replacement.
The Dayton Daily Tampon is now printed in Indianapolis. I miss the old Journal Herald it was a decent paper back in the 70’s.