I’ve been publishing online since 1997. And one of the consistent criticisms that never went away is that the online newspaper operations were never profitable.
And this came from journalists — not the business side of newspapers. These stalwarts of the left-wing media conspiracy (you do see the sarcasm here?) became rabid capitalists.
My answer was that I would gladly quit when they fired the editorial page staff. Because those pages had no ads. They took up valuable newsprint without attracting a dollar of ad revenue.
Apparently I have some fans in Provo, Utah:
“The Daily Herald has recently made some organizational changes, and with those we have decided to change the way we present opinions in the newspaper. This is a popular section, and we will keep bringing it to you, but we will no longer be printing a daily opinions page with editorials, wire opinions and cartoons.” (via Editor’s note)
Of course this is the problem with cost-benefit analyses. Some pretty important journalism gets thrown out in the name of revenue generation.
Sports departments should be worried.
