I mean, if you care about a well-informed citizenry and the cause of democracy and all the individual rights, freedoms and liberties it bestows upon you, the disappearance of "the paper" and local / investigative journalism in general should be a concern and no joking matter. A free, independent and I'd say vibrant press in this time of continuing disappearance of mainstream journalism is essential to our government and avoiding a slip (or slow tumble) into autocracy or one-party rule or total lack of freedom. I worry about the constant and slow erosion / disappearance of local journalism to check local governments, state governments and those institutions and people in power:
Just look at the countries around the world that don't have freedom and have fallen into autocratic rule and misfeasance or worse, malfeasance and corruption. They often have constitutional rights on paper just like ours, but not in practice / reality. They're just words if "the people" and those in power don't follow them. That's why the appearance of a demagogue like Donald Trump who lies about many things of public importance, not the least of which was an election he lost but continues to claim fraud, was "stolen" and whip-up a gullible, angry and sizeable group of Americans enough to storm the capital after a legitimate election, and someone who calls the Secretary of State of Georgia (a Republican, Raffensburger) to "find him votes" as Trump was recorded to say, is scary. There's less journalists and well-resourced news rooms to report on public officials. EVERY PUBLIC OFFICIAL, regardless of political party.
Anyway, good luck to Randy Peterson. I hope the Register replaces him, but I keep subscribing for the purpose of local news reporting more than sports. If we lose sports coverage for ISU, it will feel unfair if Iowa continues to get coverage, but the reality is that local government reporting is much more important and as long as that continues and they don't lose further news reporters / investigative journalists, it will be alright.