4 ms·

I think the problem with journalism is that it was never the actual business. What it was, were supporting and adding sophistication to the news industry, but i

I think the problem with journalism is that it was never the actual business. What it was, were supporting and adding sophistication to the news industry, but it was never actually central to the business. But the value of news was that it didnt used to be widely available. That was actually what people paid for. The news, not the journalism. And so what we see are all these people in the news industry trying to improve their business by improving journalism.

Lazare 10y ago
Don't forget classified ads either. Historically the rule of thumb is that subscriptions and newsstand sales would more-or-less cover the cost of ink and paper. Ads (and especially classified ads, which were an enormous money spinner) paid for the actual journalism. The moment the internet gutted ad revenue, this stopped being viable. As you say, journalism made the news prestigious, but the news didn't actually make money either; it was just there to get eyeballs onto the ads.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  I would disagree somehow. You are right that classified makes money. However; news was not freely available as it is today and thus I would say that news was actually something people used to pay for. It was not as lucrative as the classified but it was a major contributor to people actually buying newspapers. They simple did not have another choice if they wanted to know what was going on.
  - Lazare 10y ago
    > It was not as lucrative as the classified but it was a major contributor to people actually buying newspapers. They simple did not have another choice if they wanted to know what was going on. Yes, absolutely. But the point is that while maybe people wouldn't have bought a newspaper that didn't have news, they still weren't willing to pay for the news component. When offered a choice between not having news and paying the actual cost if providing it, people have always opted against paying for it. An obvious analogy is search engines. It's a useful and valuable service, but so far, users have not been willing to pay for the cost of providing one. Every search engine exists either as a loss making venture or is used as traffic/data generation for something profitable which cross-subsidises it. (Even DDG is profitable only due to their ads.)
ddebernardy 10y ago
Distribution was also key in the demise. The business model for decades, explained in one of Buffet's shareholder letters, was to become an area's key source of news: Once you're the last newspaper in town, you get to milk the area. That flew out the window when internet came along.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Agree but it was the distribution of news which was valuable. I.e. that not everyone could delivery you news only the newspapers who also did most of the vetting and curation process for you.
  - ddebernardy 10y ago
    Exactly. And hence the giant shift: the valuable distribution (aka classifieds) went to specialized sites, and no longer to newspapers. Newspaper business models were screwed online from the onset.

Lazare 10y ago

Don't forget classified ads either. Historically the rule of thumb is that subscriptions and newsstand sales would more-or-less cover the cost of ink and paper. Ads (and especially classified ads, which were an enormous money spinner) paid for the actual journalism. The moment the internet gutted ad revenue, this stopped being viable. As you say, journalism made the news prestigious, but the news didn't actually make money either; it was just there to get eyeballs onto the ads.

ThomPete 10y ago
I would disagree somehow. You are right that classified makes money. However; news was not freely available as it is today and thus I would say that news was actually something people used to pay for. It was not as lucrative as the classified but it was a major contributor to people actually buying newspapers. They simple did not have another choice if they wanted to know what was going on.
- Lazare 10y ago
  > It was not as lucrative as the classified but it was a major contributor to people actually buying newspapers. They simple did not have another choice if they wanted to know what was going on. Yes, absolutely. But the point is that while maybe people wouldn't have bought a newspaper that didn't have news, they still weren't willing to pay for the news component. When offered a choice between not having news and paying the actual cost if providing it, people have always opted against paying for it. An obvious analogy is search engines. It's a useful and valuable service, but so far, users have not been willing to pay for the cost of providing one. Every search engine exists either as a loss making venture or is used as traffic/data generation for something profitable which cross-subsidises it. (Even DDG is profitable only due to their ads.)

ddebernardy 10y ago

Distribution was also key in the demise. The business model for decades, explained in one of Buffet's shareholder letters, was to become an area's key source of news: Once you're the last newspaper in town, you get to milk the area. That flew out the window when internet came along.

ThomPete 10y ago
Agree but it was the distribution of news which was valuable. I.e. that not everyone could delivery you news only the newspapers who also did most of the vetting and curation process for you.
- ddebernardy 10y ago
  Exactly. And hence the giant shift: the valuable distribution (aka classifieds) went to specialized sites, and no longer to newspapers. Newspaper business models were screwed online from the onset.