Ads are bad in the sense that they introduce bias (imagine your biggest advertiser pulls out because you publish a story about X, and staff needs to put bread o

Ads are bad in the sense that they introduce bias (imagine your biggest advertiser pulls out because you publish a story about X, and staff needs to put bread on their families’ tables). That said, yeah, no ads does not automatically mean fair reporting. Organizations and individuals doing journalist work are in a weird position where they have to have a degree of selflessness/idealism in order to do a good job, and subscribers need to trust that they have it.