It also troubles me that so many of these features come from wire services or syndicates. I haven't counted actual articles, but it's my perception that less than a third of the news that appears on The Roanoke Times's page one is national. International news fares even worse. Most days, you have to go five or six pages into the front section to find a couple of pages of international news. I can imagine all the arguments an editor would make for putting features on page one.
Readers like to see local people engaged in everyday activities on the front of the newspaper.
Features tend to lure younger readers and women, neither of whom have traditionally read newspapers as regularly as middle-aged and older men. And, if the company wants to be a regional news organization, that's fine. The risk of reading only a regional newspaper is that we won't know things. This is how Holocausts happen. Just based on my own experience, I'd guess that most Americans' knowledge of foreign affairs is sadly lacking.