I used to work for little papers like that; my first job out of college paid a little more than half what I made as a letter carrier while I was going to school. They put me in charge of country correspondents who were paid 5 to 15 cents for each inch of their copy we printed. At the time, most papers employed proof readers who were generally pretty high quality -- they disappeared probably 10 years ago. The crowd of reporters and editors I work with now is less-educated on law, politics and life in general than the newsroom employees of even 15 years ago.