Basic news is a commodity when it is reporting on already-public records, e.g. Hansard or the Congressional Record. For reporting on organized events such as press conferences, it is mostly a commodity as the number of reporters present will be broadly proportional to the public interest in its topic.
However, there are huge number of events that aren't automatically included in some official register, and that's where having a reporter on the ground is vitally important to the quality of the journalism. I don't know if you consider that basic news or not; personally, I do. I would say that the major newspapers must move back to that model, in which journalists conduct their own interviews and reporters take their own photographs, to survive. They must produce value, and there's nothing more valuable in reporting than the 'scoop'.
However, there are huge number of events that aren't automatically included in some official register, and that's where having a reporter on the ground is vitally important to the quality of the journalism. I don't know if you consider that basic news or not; personally, I do. I would say that the major newspapers must move back to that model, in which journalists conduct their own interviews and reporters take their own photographs, to survive. They must produce value, and there's nothing more valuable in reporting than the 'scoop'.