Any decent provincial newspaper ought to be able to give its readers a much saner picture of the world than the popular national papers

It is good that there should be a real independent provincial Press. People ought to read national newspapers, but they also ought to read local newspapers too, for England, even now, is still the country of local government , local politics, strong local interests, and only the newspaper written and published in the immediate neighbourhood can deal adequately with such government, politics and interests. It is important that people should read that Alderman Smith said this and Councillor Robinson did that. It is important that they should realize what is happening in their own district. Gossip and chatter from Fleet Street in a poor substitute for such information about and criticism of local affairs. Any decent provincial newspaper ought to be able to give its readers a much saner picture of the world than the popular national papers, with their hysteria and stunts and comic antics. 

J.B. Priestley, English Journey (1934), 36

Sadly, much of this is no longer true.

It is a fact amazing to ordinary mortals that The Jupiter is never wrong

I wanted to post the entire chapter on the power of the press from The Warden, but it's too long. This is the best bit - the entire thing is here.

It is a fact amazing to ordinary mortals that The Jupiter [i.e. the Times] is never wrong. With what endless care, with what unsparing labour, do we not strive to get together for our great national council the men most fitting to compose it. And how we fail! Parliament is always wrong: look at The Jupiter, and see how futile are their meetings, how vain their council, how needless all their trouble! With what pride do we regard our chief ministers, the great servants of state, the oligarchs of the nation on whose wisdom we lean, to whom we look for guidance in our difficulties! But what are they to the writers of The Jupiter? They hold council together and with anxious thought painfully elaborate their country's good; but when all is done, The Jupiter declares that all is naught. Why should we look to Lord John Russell - why should we regard Palmerston and Gladstone, when Tom Towers without a struggle can put us right? Look at our generals, what faults they make; at our admirals, how inactive they are. What money, honesty, and science can do, is done; and yet how badly are our troops brought together, fed, conveyed, clothed, armed, and managed. The most excellent of our good men do their best to man our ships, with the assistance of all possible external appliances; but in vain. All, all is wrong - alas! alas! Tom Towers, and he alone, knows all about it. Why, oh why, ye earthly ministers, why have ye not followed more closely this heaven-sent messenger that is among us?

A. Trollope, The Warden (1855), 181