This is a very correct question to be asking. The Alden Global Capital guys have been pioneers of this, but are not the only ones of course. Of the papers you've heard of, they own a plurality of them. And what they are most known for is (of course, being PE) optimizing shareholder value. Firing people and replacing local content with wire stories and shared material from other papers in the portfolio.

Their current list of formerly great papers includes the Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Boston Herald, The Mercury News, East Bay Times, The Orange County Register, and Orlando Sentinel.

They also bought my hometown daily paper, just a small, nowheresville town. The paper went from being respectably sized for a small town, and featuring many local news stories, to being slim and having one randomly selected story from one of the 5-8 papers they own in the region, and a bunch of wire stories. Once a week, they copy and paste the local police blotter.

The outlook on the news industry is exceedingly bleak. :(