Newspapers can contain references to people long after they died. They can be mentioned in obituaries of their children or other family members, retrospective columns, references to their former residence or farm, etc.
Don’t assume that someone will not be in the paper after they died. 
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I personally in my own personal research have gathered information by checking obituaries of their Siblings. On my maternal side I had one GGG Grandfather who had 25 Siblings (all by the same mother) and there had been disagreements after the death of the father. Following records of his death records and those of several brothers it enabled me to locate many of the female siblings in this family. It took a great deal of time and work but was very rewarding in obtaining information for the book I’m writing on my 5th G Grandfather. None of them would of been found without checking obits, wills, Probate, church, military, and Land records. None of this information was available on the Internet and still cannot be obtained by relying on the internet.
Some of the newspapers I have found information in have columns giving genealogies of families who lived in the area years before. And some of them also print columns containing titles such as ’25 Years Ago” or “50 Years Ago”. These are often engagement or marriage or birth announcements reprinted word for word from the original. Sometimes these newer ones are more legible than the originals.
That’s very true. Sometimes the reprinted ones come up on searches for that very same reason.
I found a nice one about a great uncle’s military service in the Spanish American War. The town was doing 100 years ago articles. I was surprised and happy!
I’ve picked up some great biographical detail from obits and accounts of inquests. They’ve added a lot of colour, new lines of research. and detail not found in other records to my family tree. Sadly, my Irish ancestors don’t seem to have warranted such attention.