That is true to some extent, but for UK local news they still do dogged investigating. The biggest example being the phone hacking scandal at Murdoch newspapers[1] . That police investigation would never have been reopened if not for the Guardian's reporting (they did make errors there too, but some of those I'd attribute to the unwise idea of allowing the showbiz gossip columnist to write about politics and police investigations…[2])
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World_phone_hackin... The whole story goes far beyond what is mentioned in that article: huge corruption in the Met, an axe murder in a london car park and of course a government communications director, his prior involvement in the hacking and his affair with a certain newspaper executive
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World_phone_hackin... The whole story goes far beyond what is mentioned in that article: huge corruption in the Met, an axe murder in a london car park and of course a government communications director, his prior involvement in the hacking and his affair with a certain newspaper executive
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Hyde