Why do we need The Toronto Star?

In the past week or so, I've concluded that The Toronto Star has outlived any residual use it might have had to society.

This 'newspaper' - which has always been left-leaning - has at least served to inform on local news and content. However, these days, not only do the so-called national papers often to beat The Star to the punch, they offer more in depth analysis.

For example, The National Post beat The Star in reporting on this:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/08/20/toronto-economy-in-deep-slump-city-report-shows-really-scary.aspx

by a whole day - published on August 20th.

The Star's article:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/684386

came out the following day.

Not only that, the Post's article is better written. The Post opened the story up for reader comments, while The Star (as is all too often the case) did not.