Make the paper a weekly or a monthly. Eliminate fluff, abandon breaking news and provide deep insight.

That's the same model used by magazines like the economist and the atlantic, and I think they're doing well.

This would not be the end of the tabloid, the are so cheap to produce they can go on forever. It would not be the end of local news, it would not even be the end of local daily or breaking news. It would just be the end of of printed daily local news.