I'd say that that's a feature of modern-ish newspapers with "advanced" layouting techniques from early to mid 20th century.

A news sheet from THE olden days (eg Victorian era), looks more like a wall of text, set as tightly -- an uniformly -- as possibly, which is not surprising considering the limitations imposed by the technology of the day.

As for story selection, I think the collective hivemind of hn-ers would be a worthy substitute for an editor in chief.