The real death of the news was that with the internet, these sleepy old papers suddenly had competition from around the world. No longer was it an essential regional monopoly or cartel of a couple news orgs being the source of truth for a given region. Now that they no longer have their moat, what do you know, old establishment folded to things people would rather spend their attention on now that they actually have the choice to do so.
True, but there's more: as I pointed out in my sister comment here, newspapers used to pull in money from classified ads too, but the internet made those completely obsolete. Basically, pre-internet, the only way to communicate with other people (other than directly or with a phone) was through TV, radio, or newspapers. Newspapers were by far the cheapest option, and most accessible to regular people (i.e., the classifieds). The internet replaced that: now people can communicate with others through the internet and various websites and other digital services.
It wasn't just about "the truth", it was about how people could participate in mass communications: the newspapers had a lock on one of the main ways to do this. The internet gave us a new communications medium.
