One answer to that is to go to a weekly format. I think the economics work out a lot better than for a daily.

Around Tompkins County we still have the Ithaca Journal but each edition seems a little thinner than the one before.

There is a civic-minded weekly, Tompkins Weekly which is mostly newspaper-length stories and makes it to public meetings, and also the weekly Ithaca Times which covers serious issues, often with stories a bit longer than newspaper stories. There are also some publications focused on arts and entertainment.