You need a lot of principles and some money, getting those things together in the same place seems hard.
Was news in the past better ( more comprehensive? more verified?), or just better presented?
News in the more recent past tried to be a little more hands off of politics. The market dynamics were usually such that you wanted to sell both to the left and the right. Some newsmen idealized this and sold the product with the idea of an allegiance to fact, and the idea that the facts would speak for themselves. Opinions were indulged on the editorial page (where advertisers fear to tread) and they could be safely ignored. Opinions were avoided elsewhere. Sensationalism was for tabloids; major papers achieved respect and a reputation and premium prices with their restraint.
News of the present finds the market dynamics have reverted; overt partisanship and sensationalism drive reader engagement again — but we’ve got a ways to go before we have overtly political journalism everywhere and widespread cases of yellow journalism like in the past.
1. I'm somewhat nostalgic to physical newspapers for a couple of reasons, I think because they were physical and required a little bit more effort. They felt more authoritative and verifiable, that's the nostalgia. However I think there was another benefit to the journalists, because they were crafting a physical body of work, I probably naively believe it instilled a sense of duty in that work. Personally I feel like if my product (not code) was a fleeting piece of information, easily changeable and forgotten among a deluge of other work. I would not feel as obligated to honor the craft. So in short, less comprehensive and better verified and presented.
2. News was concentrated, I don't think this was necessarily a good thing. This is somewhat contradictory to 1. But I think this concentration was an easier to accept narrative and speaking to my above point, that presented a level of even-headedness to the whole affair of understanding the world and our place in it. The firehose that was unleashed with Google was good, but it then signaled the death of lots of rational measured thought and brought us to where we are today.