The main business of newspapers was always just getting the info from A to B. I had a reporter friend who used to compare his job to working on the docks. Some fire would break out, and he'd be sent to "unload" the news from the fire department and the usual shocked-and-stunned families and the neighbors, and boom, file his story. And this was when newspapers were actually good.
By the 1990s, newspapers had virtually no useful content left. It was just a habit for some readers, and a local monopoly for certain forms of advertising. Newspapers had been consolidated to the point where local news was dreadful to non-existent, and most of the paper was filled with bland wire stories and syndicated columnists of no particular merit. The one thing you really needed the newspaper for was classified ads, and the internet killed that pretty quickly.
People are willing to pay more for actually rare information. Nouriel Roubini, the economist, runs a paid newsletter to people who want to hear his contrarian views.
Furthermore, there's a huge gap in local news these days. Local government, schools -- all this stuff that really matters to people has no medium any more.