You're of course correct about the classifieds business funding the news side of newspapers, as well as certain editorial brands as a revenue source. The probl

You're of course correct about the classifieds business funding the news side of newspapers, as well as certain editorial brands as a revenue source. The problem is that in the absence of actual news gathering, editorializing becomes either navel-gazing or shilling for whatever bias you have. It's hard to have meaningful editorials about government spying on its citizens or companies shipping shoddy products if you don't actually have the news of such things in the first place due to a lack of revenue to fund investigative reporting. There is of course the possibility of citizen journalism devoid of any substantial revenue model, but the passion necessary for Joe Smith to take time from his normal life to dig around dumpsters probably reveals an existing bias to begin with, so you're back to the editorial without dependable news on which to base it. There's a reason it's a hard problem that few news organizations have come remotely close to solving.