In the print media today, local news in daily newspapers is still supported by advertising, and I don't disagree with that. The problem is that this only works effectively in under 100 Canadian cities. In other cities, they are just barely scraping along, trying to make it. Look at the 1,000 or so non-daily papers across Canada. Most of them are extremely small. Yes, they are getting some local support and some local advertising, but the cost structures of print are killing them.
What they need is to be able to find ways to transition over the coming 10 years to digital, so that they can remain viable as a digital operation when their print advertising declines. The advertising even in local papers is declining, and you can see it coming that they, even in non-daily, will get to the point in another decade or so where they are not going to be very able to survive in their current forms.