Eh, it’s easy not to remember them too fondly when your local market is so dinkum that the only option was nationally syndicated trash masquerading as a local rag. Maybe there’s somewhere left in America that’s still a Norman Rockwell picture of idyllic rural charm and integrity where Real Intrepid Reporters get the hard hitting scoop in between writing heartfelt human interest stories about beloved 101 year old grandmothers and their puppies. But that sure as fuck ain’t what happens here. My “local” paper is actually a Gannett product, and aside from whatever they just import from AP and regurgitate verbatim, every actually vaguely local article is chock-a-block full of factual inaccuracies and trash journalism. Their copy editing is crap, too. Some of the stuff that makes it to print looks like it was written by an eighth grader. They charge money for this shit. I won’t be too sad to see it go, if it did.

Other than that, we have no real alternatives. Some of the bigger neighborhoods run their own newsletters, the kind of stuff that they just photocopy onto regular 8.5x11 paper and leaflet everyone with. And the school district runs its own rag, which is just as useless as you’d expect.

Otherwise we’ve got USA Today, Fox, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. And the internet.