Comment by robonerd

> Or maybe it was already in decline and Trump times just made it that much more evident.

I think it's this one. Local news has been in a death spiral for 20 years at least, I distinctly remember adults in the late 90s and early 00s bemoaning the demise of all the local papers, with one left standing but also dying. During Trump times they latched onto reporting about national news instead of local in a desperate bid for relevancy, but obviously couldn't compete with national news.