Printed paper will not last but that is not what is killing local papers. There was a time when they were the only game in town so the leftists in Boston could write the same story as the leftist in LA and sell it to a captive market. Now that anyone can get news from any location they have to compete with eachother. Since the stories are the same who needs two sources. The employees have an even worse prognosis because, having been trained to do nothing but aggregate and regurgitate leftist agitprop, they are incapable of creating original content. Aggregating and regurgitating is exactly what AI does, cheaper and better than they can.
I could be wrong, but the lack of advertising is what is killing printed newspapers. Less revenue from ads means fewer local ‘reporters’ and more stuff bought from AP. Our local TV station is doing the same thing. Half of the local news is devoted to stories like ‘Buffalo, NY man uses spare time building birdhouses”.
My wife subscribes mainly for the obits and the crosswords. I do the Sudoku and read the comics. Fresher news is available everywhere.