>60 minutes did a story on the loss of the newspapers. It is tragic because most online news sources just regurgitate the stuff from many newspapers and television news feeds. The newspapers spend the $ to do the research, do the followup calls, make sure the information is valid, etc. Most online sources just paraphrase what was already done. Local news may be the next to go. The sad thing is that those who only ever got their news online, won't even know what they are missing.
Even those papers that maintain an online presence after the physical papers are gone (like the Seattle PI) will still suffer because of staff cutbacks. I wonder if they will still be able to do the same amount of research necessary to post a valid story.