From a SEO point of view, the idea of removing duplicated or very similar content is good, but for news websites… I don’t know. Why not use “noindex” on pages/sitemaps of old pages and “nofollow” inside the site for old links? At least they wouldn’t create link rot.

Edit: I recommend reading this: https://searchengineland.com/google-warns-against-content-pruning-as-cnet-deletes-thousands-of-pages-430509