Local press has been dying for years in that it's too slow and takes time to adapt to the quick landscape of the world. This has caused news deserts and pushed us to a point where Facebook or other social media locations become the community hub. I say we find a way, a framework to take that back.
Let's make the local news central community but find a way to provide news without a paywall, but provide services. Sell a subscription to local users that give them access to post comments or interact with the town space and moderate it in such a way that only local users have an opportunity to interact with the site but share the media to outsiders. Create social spaces for local organizations to plan events and gatherings but again, allow it to be restricted. Sell a business license that allows them to setup their own space and promote their business in the community, but also push their daily specials, host events.
Setup ties with local schools so that they can also promote events or news to the community. Establish APIs so they they can tied to their LMSes.
Give local people a chance to host their video blogs or podcasts without having to go through Google or whatever number of 3rd service far off mega corporations.
Again, the goal is to create an easy to adapt framework that can't scale past a community. Bring back the sense of community that the newspaper once did. Make the content accessible to all, but edited by some. Keep the ads local so that people think of a reason to come to the community.
I saw this article and I can't help but think that I want to help the small communities build that level of connectivity that has been lost over the decades. I live in an area where the communities gets smaller and are dying. The town that once lived near is now unincorporated. Other towns are half the size they once where.
I think with the right design, and the right level of local management, this could become something that catches on like wild fire and builds around the area. I know it's missing and paywalled papers are not long for this world.