I think it's, in part, convention. That convention, though, has roots in political partisanship--but it was unabashed. Newspapers were originally funded by political parties, politicians, and partisan orgs and unabashed about naming themsleves The Standard or The Criterion. In NYS those names were historically proceeded by the names of political parties. My hometown paper was The [City] Republican Standard. In Ithaca, the first newspaper for the county was the Seneca Republican. They changed it to The Ithaca Journal a year later. Ten years later it was called [!!] the the Ithaca Journal, Literary Gazette and General Advertiser. :) They eventually shortened it to the Ithaca Journal and Advertiser.
There were also newspapers with names like the Commercial Appeal and the Daily Advertiser or the Chronicle and Advertiser.
Newspapers shifted mainly to an advertising model in the late 1800s. Throughout the 20th c you see newspapers in smaller towns merge. in upstate NY there was/is The Syracuse Post-Standard, The Syracuse Herald-American, the Times Herald-Record, The Plattsburgh Press-Republican, The Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (fondly called the D&C by locals :).
My father was chief paper boy for the local paper which served a city of 10-15k. He was never home for dinner b/c he was out delivering papers. Paperboys/girls would skip their routes. People are very cranky when they don't get their daily newspaper so they can read the police blotter. :)
The son of the last dem mayor hated me with a passion b/c my dad worked at a newspaper that was once a republican rag. Didn't matter that the editor was now a democrat and wrote dem leaning editorials. So, this guy ridiculed me every single day. He was especially annoyed that I was the top math student and he was charged with teaching me and another boy advanced math. I was a girl, he informed me, and therefore not cut out for math. @@
Kelley