Local is where getting the news is the hardest. My local school board meets at the same time as the local zoning board...

My town publishes city meeting minutes - "debated to change zoning regulations in [development], it passed 2-3". What changes were made? What were the debate points? Once I get that information who do I vote for/against in the next election if I care about the change.

I really want a local news paper that covers the above types of things. I can't find it and in turn I have no idea who to vote for. Town positions are partizan so I at least I know democrat/republican (for whatever that means...). I also know all candidates are married and have kids - and the family picture was taken by someone who knows how to make them look good. They all will "fight for me" as well, but never do they promise anything that might be controversial (unlike their opponent - they are obviously biased against their opponent and yet they are my best source of information about their opponent)

National news I will hear about and I can form opinions. However local it is much harder. The newspapers I have access to are not helping.

If you're lucky, you'll have a motivated local blogger who attends the meetings and posts reports. If you do, throw them a few bucks in whatever way they accept payments. The local paper used to send a reporter to do that but they only have a couple of actual reporters working now.

The unfortunate part is that while a lot of people might want that information, few will pay for it. I ran a small company's paywall, like this was a small chain of local papers. We could barely give the subscriptions away.