DATELINE -- Obsolescence

We've made reference before to vendors who could feel the pinch as the media world changes. In response to Jay Small's questions about AP's strategy vis-a-vis Google News, Adrian Holovaty makes an interesting point:

What, really, is the point of the AP in the age of the Internet? My (quite possibly incorrect) understanding is that it did two things for print newspapers:

1. Gave them filler content to put between ads when there wasn't enough local copy.

2. Gave them access to coverage of out-of-market news, so that the local newspaper could be a one-stop shop for all news -- local, national and international. So the paper in Smalltown, Nebraska, could have front-page stories about the Pope.

Seems to me both of these things are just not that valuable to news operations on the Web. Does it make sense for a local news site to have national news coverage when the Web sites for CNN, the NYT, et al, are a click away?