Having worked in newspapers and television --- and for that matter in wire services, which use the resources and feed the resources of both --- I can safely say that the newspaper is more likely to be the originating source of local content more often than is the television station.
This is a bit of a noisy argument in our craft, because television clearly holds the upperhand in having impact and in being the prime source of content in a community. It reaches more people and, having worked both media, leaves more of a memory in its storytelling more times than not.
But Phil Mushnick in today's New York Post laments the decline of the paper for a simple reason: Without the newspaper, what's a television station to do?