Never considered it, but it seems to make a lot of sense. Would you mind pointing me to the evidence about this you mentioned?
"Local newspapers hold their governments accountable. We examine the effect of local newspaper closures on public finance for local governments. Following a newspaper closure, we find municipal borrowing costs increase by 5 to 11 basis points in the long run. Identification tests illustrate that these results are not being driven by deteriorating local economic conditions. The loss of monitoring that results from newspaper closures is associated with increased government inefficiencies, including higher likelihoods of costly advance refundings and negotiated issues, and higher government wages, employees, and tax revenues."
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Murphy-...