Charlie Jane Anders makes the case that Locus is still the closest thing SFF has to a paper of record - industry gossip, deals, interviews, and a fat review section that actually covers a lot of new speculative books, not just the three titles your newspaper still notices.
She ties that to lived experience and to vanishing newspaper book pages. On short fiction especially: the magazines where people experiment are stressed for cash, and Locus is one of the few places still reviewing short work with any consistency. If you want the magazine to exist next year, she nudges you toward Locus's annual fundraiser.
(Shortened and summarised to avoid devaluing the source)