You might not be an ace with HTML or CSS. Heck, you might not even be a great coder (I suck at coding!), but you've probably learned very valuable lessons about how a local newspaper works and how your work could add value to them.
Can you remember every time you had an opinion about how to do something and it was shut down by someone else? Do you still think you were right? If yes, that means you think you can do better. What about those ideas you've never shared but still think were great?
Why don't you sell this knowledge to local newspapers? You could start an IT consultancy specialized in the newspapers business. You could sell again your services to the same newspaper that just let you go, plus other newspapers in your region.
This is my advice without knowing much about you. I hope it helps you in any way :)