I was looking at our backlink profile and noticed a few instances of backlinks from newspapers sites going to some kind of local directory then to our site. for example, on nydailynews.com there is a link like [noparse]http://localdirectory.nydailynews.com/atlantic-beach-fl/xxxxx.html[/noparse]. are these considered spammy? btw,we are in florida, not new york.
Links from newspapers are some of the best you can find. Many of our link building campaigns are focused on enticing reporters to write articles relating to our site.
Are you saying that the newspaper has a web directory and that is where the link is coming from? If so, these are much less valuable than content based links. I would still not consider it to be a bad link though if it is on a reputable website.
If the main domain is not considered as a bad domain from google then there will be no problem I agree. The link itself though looks to be valid and there is no reason to worry, the worst case is that google does not give you any value for the link but you will not get penalty 
As already said, links from newspapers are fantastic, especially if they are national newspapers. During my time at a travel company, it was suggested that the company get in contact with some freelance writers regarding the service the company offers, and after they tried it out the company had two reviews on The Guardian and The Independent newspapers; two main newspapers in the UK. After a few weeks we noticed a noticeable increase in traffic, and the site was ranking near the top on numerous region-specific searches.
links from good newspapers and magazines are best to get
also u will expect some traffic from the subscribers of that newspapers
they are considered high authority backlinks
Check the pagerank too on these sites. If their site is a higher PR than yours it’s even better.
Links from news site may not always be great, it could become spammy when a site caught in selling link. Several of UK news site has been drop trust as authority site.
I would recommend you to get backlinks from websites belonging to your niche. As far as getting backlinks from a newspaper site is concerned, it’s not considered spammy.
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