With respect to local news coverage: what did you really expect from certain local news publications anyway? :)  The local publication in question just feels so yesteryear and irrelevant that I wouldn't worry about its coverage because it is only "informing" a handful of people that would be vocal about the issues regardless of what they read in the paper or not.

Apparently the @news_gazette Twitter account was only created in October last year.  Where were they?  I had been writing software to connect to Twitter since March 2007 and I felt late to the game.  There really isn't any excuse for media companies of any kind to be that late to the game though.