So I actually worked with Gannet on some of their local content strategy, and they did do a version of this. About 10 or so years ago they moved all of their local publications to a single tech-stack online so they could provide a sort of consistent look/feel, and used USAT national stories as part of that local web feed. Just doing this was a huge undertaking, and one they were a bit concerned about given how loyal the local reader base was to the local publication, and not necessarily USAT. You could subscribe to the local sites, so in some way they were bundling national and local, just not in an obvious way.

They were also concerned about the ‘hard news’ reputation on USAT, so maybe the Reuters play is a way to bolster that perception a bit?