5 ms·

Newspapers and magazines have derived most of their revenue from ads since long before Google and Facebook. They're lucky to break even on subscription fees.

jeffbee 5y ago
Seriously newspapers spent the entire 20th century charging people as much as $100 for classified ads, job postings, real estate listings, etc. Craigslist murdered them and they deserved it. Everything after that has been sour grapes.
- imachine1980_ 5y ago
  Do you realy think the value they give to communities is less than have 100$ job post
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    My local newspaper is a notoriously worthless rag that has probably done more to harm humanity than to benefit it, including starting a major war.
    - trulyme 5y ago
      Your local newspaper has started a major war?
      - jeffbee 5y ago
        Yes. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/yellow-journalism https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/yellow-journa...
        yesbabyyes 5y ago
        I was about to say you must be from New York, but I was rather thinking about NYTimes, Judith Miller and the US War on Iraq. Plus ça change...
        trulyme 5y ago
        Incredible, I'm glad I asked - TIL. Thank you!
  - tombert 5y ago
    I think local papers give lots of value, but at the same time if I am a for-profit business, my goal isn't to help out the local newspaper, it's to make (and possibly save) as much money as possible. I don't know the success numbers of job classified ads, but I doubt it comes anywhere near the success numbers of places like Indeed or StackOverflow Jobs or Dice, all of which charge substantially less money and reach a larger audience.
  - tqi 5y ago
    People have a really rosy memory of local newspapers, but I grew up in a small midwest town with an "award winning" local newspaper in pre internet days, and I remember it mostly consisting of poorly written drivel and AP wire articles.
    - joedevon 5y ago
      I'm sure it was a mixed bag but Corporate Media did not break the Epstein story. They famously avoided it, @see Amy Robach and ABC News leak. The Miami Herald, a local paper, broke the story thanks to a great journalist there. IMO you are really discounting just how massive the importance of local journalism has historically been. PE firms are now buying up and destroying these once great outlets, including the Miami Herald.
      - bduerst 5y ago
        I don't think the local newspaper in their community would have broken the Epstein news story either. The Miami Herald is one of the largest in Florida, and where many of Epstein's crimes took place.
enobrev 5y ago
This is right. It's not Facebook that ate the media's lunch, it was craigslist, ebay, and any marketplace that allows free listings. They've been trying to make up that revenue ever since. Subscriptions were always a pittance. That's not to say Facebook didn't make things worse. They make everything worse; They even ruined wishing friends happy birthday. But the news vs the internet is a much older story than middle-aged social media platforms. The news companies had their opportunity to win this, but they moved far too late.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > Subscriptions were always a pittance. It's not that they were a pittance, it's that they were eaten by the cost of printing and distribution. But the internet doesn't have that. The problem was the chronology of how this happened. Newspapers had paid print subscribers and advertisers and were profitable. Then the advertisers were eaten by eBay and Craigslist, so they went into the red. But their paid subscribers were still print subscribers, so they still had all the costs of printing and distribution. So they responded by laying off reporters. Then they had no content worth subscribing to, so the subscribers went away. At that point they're just worthless clickbait mills chasing online ad money. But the model of paying to subscribe to high quality content which is then distributed over the internet so that money goes to the reporters instead of the distribution costs, that works fine. The real "problem" with it is that it works fine without a newspaper company. The reason you had a hundred reporters working together in the same building was so they could share a printing press. Without that need, you end up with individuals doing reporting on substack. Which works, but not for the shareholders of the New York Times.
  - freediver 5y ago
    I mostly agree with your assessment apart from this part: > Without that need, you end up with individuals doing reporting on substack. Content that is produced on substack is opinion, not news. It is produced from a comfort of a chair, not from a war zone or a hurricane zone. Nothing wrong with that (if opinion is what you are after), but you actually need to have a news organization to produce news coverage. A single person can not do it in a professional and repeatable way.

jeffbee 5y ago

Seriously newspapers spent the entire 20th century charging people as much as $100 for classified ads, job postings, real estate listings, etc. Craigslist murdered them and they deserved it. Everything after that has been sour grapes.

imachine1980_ 5y ago
Do you realy think the value they give to communities is less than have 100$ job post
- jeffbee 5y ago
  My local newspaper is a notoriously worthless rag that has probably done more to harm humanity than to benefit it, including starting a major war.
  - trulyme 5y ago
    Your local newspaper has started a major war?
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Yes. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/yellow-journalism https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/yellow-journa...
      - yesbabyyes 5y ago
        I was about to say you must be from New York, but I was rather thinking about NYTimes, Judith Miller and the US War on Iraq. Plus ça change...
      - trulyme 5y ago
        Incredible, I'm glad I asked - TIL. Thank you!
- tombert 5y ago
  I think local papers give lots of value, but at the same time if I am a for-profit business, my goal isn't to help out the local newspaper, it's to make (and possibly save) as much money as possible. I don't know the success numbers of job classified ads, but I doubt it comes anywhere near the success numbers of places like Indeed or StackOverflow Jobs or Dice, all of which charge substantially less money and reach a larger audience.
- tqi 5y ago
  People have a really rosy memory of local newspapers, but I grew up in a small midwest town with an "award winning" local newspaper in pre internet days, and I remember it mostly consisting of poorly written drivel and AP wire articles.
  - joedevon 5y ago
    I'm sure it was a mixed bag but Corporate Media did not break the Epstein story. They famously avoided it, @see Amy Robach and ABC News leak. The Miami Herald, a local paper, broke the story thanks to a great journalist there. IMO you are really discounting just how massive the importance of local journalism has historically been. PE firms are now buying up and destroying these once great outlets, including the Miami Herald.
    - bduerst 5y ago
      I don't think the local newspaper in their community would have broken the Epstein news story either. The Miami Herald is one of the largest in Florida, and where many of Epstein's crimes took place.

enobrev 5y ago

This is right. It's not Facebook that ate the media's lunch, it was craigslist, ebay, and any marketplace that allows free listings. They've been trying to make up that revenue ever since. Subscriptions were always a pittance. That's not to say Facebook didn't make things worse. They make everything worse; They even ruined wishing friends happy birthday. But the news vs the internet is a much older story than middle-aged social media platforms. The news companies had their opportunity to win this, but they moved far too late.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> Subscriptions were always a pittance. It's not that they were a pittance, it's that they were eaten by the cost of printing and distribution. But the internet doesn't have that. The problem was the chronology of how this happened. Newspapers had paid print subscribers and advertisers and were profitable. Then the advertisers were eaten by eBay and Craigslist, so they went into the red. But their paid subscribers were still print subscribers, so they still had all the costs of printing and distribution. So they responded by laying off reporters. Then they had no content worth subscribing to, so the subscribers went away. At that point they're just worthless clickbait mills chasing online ad money. But the model of paying to subscribe to high quality content which is then distributed over the internet so that money goes to the reporters instead of the distribution costs, that works fine. The real "problem" with it is that it works fine without a newspaper company. The reason you had a hundred reporters working together in the same building was so they could share a printing press. Without that need, you end up with individuals doing reporting on substack. Which works, but not for the shareholders of the New York Times.
- freediver 5y ago
  I mostly agree with your assessment apart from this part: > Without that need, you end up with individuals doing reporting on substack. Content that is produced on substack is opinion, not news. It is produced from a comfort of a chair, not from a war zone or a hurricane zone. Nothing wrong with that (if opinion is what you are after), but you actually need to have a news organization to produce news coverage. A single person can not do it in a professional and repeatable way.