The future of news, as I see it: traditional media mostly dies, leaving a giant vacuum that part-time enthusiasts can't fill. People don't know what their local and regional government is up to because research is mostly boring, and who wants to do boring stuff for free? Corruption increases until investigative media outlets rise up to do full-time research and exposure. Frustrated citizens value this enough to pay for it. Paid-for media rises again, albeit in new forms, supplemented by volunteers.
In other words, the pendulum will swing back and forth as fickle humans change their mind, just like in politics and most other things in human history.
Your statements appear to be based on the idea that traditional media is telling us what "local and regional government is up to". While this is true in a sense, they leave out what our local and regional governments are actually up to. ESPECIALLY when it comes to actual corrupting influence and the effects. I see independent journalists as more willing to confront that.
Current media gives us certain facts and certain angles, but there is too much left unsaid, untouched, analyzed, due to their corporate policies and the nature of the establishment. The relationship between politics, industry, media corporations and the government has become much too overlapping and incestuous for my comfort.
TV news appears to still be profitable -- even CNN is making a profit. Newspapers should be profitable too, albeit a drastically reduced number of 'em.
In other words, the pendulum will swing back and forth as fickle humans change their mind, just like in politics and most other things in human history.