There's a lot here to digest, and I also wanted to thank Tim for coming around to open a discussion like this. I'm no newspaper insider, so I don't have the same kind of insights as Lori, for instance, but I'd just like to point out that #5 above is something I think bears repeating.
I often give a hard time to the writers from realfootball365.com -- for many reasons, of course, number one being their writing is just God awful. But there's obviously more to it than that: if you look at it, it really is nothing more than just some guy's blog. Why? Because the writers have no access to the team. They just sit at their computers and conjure up whatever opinions come into their tiny heads and try to pass it off as "journalism". They don't talk to the coaches or the players, they don't travel to see the teams play, they have absolutely no more insight into the people involved than any of us knuckleheads do.
That's one of the true values of local journalists, especially as those journalists grow into their jobs and develop close relationships with the local owners, players, and coaches. And it's one of the things that is gradually going to disappear as more and more media companies eschew the local perspective for a more generic, national one.
Thanks again, Tim.