Unless they're directly copying from press releases or, worse, police reports. Too many local (and for that matter, even national) papers don't have the money left to do actual boots-on-the-ground journalism.
(re)Publishing statements from police/Gov/bigcorp - verbatim & w/o vetting for accuracy or context - is a scourge in local news rooms.
Bigger news orgs are absolutely guilty of this but I can pick up any local paper, anywhere/any day, and find an example. It's pretty discouraging.
Of course, this was a big case in the region. For small cases, I find that both the local and national news outlets simply suck.
He was, of course, not merely acquitted but proven innocent later. I think they made a movie about that this year, but due to Covid it's been a long while since I've seen anything.
This was 15 years ago, I imagine it's only gotten worse.
The idea that news is only printed media long ago passed.
edit : the idea here is at the local level the source of news is flipped when compared to what is valuable at a national level.