I don't think folks appreciate just how tetering-on-the-edge local corruption already was before local newspapers started to die. Expect to see a lot more crazy stories coming out when small towns and small cities go so far into private-fiefdom territory that someone outside notices. The only remaining significant bulwark to ruining-the-country levels of corruption is state auditors—and that's if they're not corrupt themselves.

Larger cities may be OK a little while longer since they usually still have some local investigative reporting.

It's one of several reasons I'm no longer sure the Web is compatible with healthy democracy.