
The Gray Lady - twampss
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=651
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njerseyguy
It should be noted that the internet is not overthrowing the newspaper
business model. Newspapers have historically derived almost all of their
revenue from advertising. Subscription prices didn't even cover all the costs
of printing the physical paper, let alone the cost of producing the content.
The problem, then, is that for whatever reason, advertising isn't as effective
online as it is in print.

I can't remember where I heard this from originally, but Matthee Yglesias
makes similar remarks:

[http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/02/what_to_d...](http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/02/what_to_do_with_the_newspaper.php)

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timr
_"Newspapers have historically derived almost all of their revenue from
advertising"_

That's actually not true. As recently as the 1960s, big newspapers made nearly
half of their revenue from subscriptions:

<http://onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/02/06/03>

As far as ad revenue goes, I don't know if it's true that online ads are less
effective than print, but I know that there are a heck of a lot _more_ of them
to compete for advertising dollars. Advertisers still pay for reach into a
target market (which is why you can get crazy high CPM rates for things like
travel forums), but today there are simply a lot more sources for
undifferentiated eyeballs than there were in the 60s.

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jacoblyles
Could someone explain to me why the NY Times is considered to be high quality
news? Most mainstream news sources I have read, and I include the NY Times,
offer precious few facts per article. Analysis of those facts is non-existent,
replaced by snippets from press releases or quotes from "experts". I guess
it's supposed to be intellectual if you get commentary from both sides on an
issue, even if both sides are giving you crap.

Now compare that to the Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and more niche
publications. There are facts! Graphs! Background information! Articles on
topics other than what happened yesterday!

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yummyfajitas
It has an established reputation as a newspaper for intellectuals, i.e. every
"intellectual" you know is reading it.

They also write at a 12'th grade level, according to MS Word. (Compare to the
NY Post, for instance.)

I think that more or less explains their position in the market.

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markessien
Matt is quite wrong on this one. It's like going to a train station, and there
are 300 free but slow trains, and 1 slightly faster train where you have to
pay money. Only a very few people will pay to use the fast train, and it will
soon go out of business.

The newspaper business is going to have to become free. There is no other
alternative. Writers are what are valuable, people with insight, and not the
name or brand of the paper. Those people will survive, but the aggregator of
their information, has to be free.

