>the question isn't really who is first, it's who is covering it at all

As you get to smaller cities and even towns, I'd argue that weekly is probably fine for frequency and allows for coverage of what is actually important. Of course, online extras could cover more urgent things.

The overall economics are still an issue of course, but do people really need most local news RIGHT NOW? Of course, there was a point in my life when most of the news I consumed came from reading Time Magazine every week.