I didn't quite get to this before, but aside from advancing the long-term value/relevance of a news piece, David's right that you've got some great data to work with when you geotag stories and make them accessible on maps.

When someone searches for geotagged stories around a specific place, you know that they have a specific interest in what is going on there — that's a very valuable thing to sell to an advertiser.  I don't know if there are companies that make ad systems like this yet, but a publisher could potentially sell ads to merchants guaranteeing that that people are reading news stories that took place within a certain radius of their business.