Print newspapers are dying everywhere. Children and young people get their news over the Internet. Newspapers get 80% of their income from advertising. This money is now moving to the internet. The only way for newspapers to survive is to go digital online. Otherwise they will perish.
The Des Moines Sunday Register used to feature eight or ten pages of classified ads, each sold for $35 to $50. Today it might have one or two pages.
You're correct. Movies used to advertise showtimes. Online now. Auto dealers, online now. Employment, online now. Nobody checks the stocks in the paper, anymore. Additional problem in small towns is that advertising makes less difference. Everybody knows everybody, so either they'll do business with you or they won't. If Fred likes Tom, he'll get his gas at Tom's store. If Fred hates Tom, he'll use a half a tank of gas to avoid buying gas from Tom.
Also, nobody wants to be a reporter. Reporting is hard work. It's going through court records, attending mind-numbingly boring council meetings, and looking at things that some people would just as soon not be looked at.
Everyone wants to be an opinion columnist. Makes sense, cause you write a few "Dear Diary" paragraphs a week, and write the world according to me, and get a bigger name than the people who are reporters.
The last reporters anyone talked about were Woodstock and Birdbrain, and they were nothing but mouthpieces for the FBI to take out Nixon.