That kind of reporting is expensive, both directly and indirectly (in terms of goodwill and access to politicians). Newspapers are burning too much money now that they no longer have a monopoly on news (and, more importantly, ads) so they have to cut costs -- and the easiest thing to cut is the kind of expensive reporting that we really need them for.

I am almost always downvoted when I say so, but the NYT is not a good paper anymore, it has become a rag -- it may still only print what is fit to print, but it has long ago stopped printing exactly the kind of news they should be printing -- and which I would have been willing to pay for.