BattleMaster managed for about 10 years without having any forum at all. It is a shame so many now feel that their game experience will be impinged by closing a single section of it. If anything though, probably the place that has been most affected by the advent of the forum is the wiki. Lots more information of all kinds used to get disseminated on there but not so much these days. Newspapers might have been some work to keep going on a regular basis, but it wasn't so much different in content to what you saw on the Island news facebook threads.
If anyone wants to keep spreading information about things that are happening in the game, I heartily recommend starting up your own newspaper. You don't have to build your own templates from scratch. I believe there is a page with pre-made templates designed for newspapers and if you don't fancy using those, just nick any template code you see in other newspapers you like. But you can approach it from all types of angles. You can be partisan to your realm, or focus on continent politics. Perhaps you will focus on your duchy. Or maybe someone will use their diplomat to send diplomatic papers home. It really can be a lot of fun once you get into it.
The forum certainly didn't help the wiki, but feels to me like the wiki started declining in use much before the forums arrived.
