http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:NusYQyohJsgJ:adage.com/mediaworks/article%3Farticle_id%3D134795+newspapers+debt+profit+%22advertising+age%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari

whoa. There’s a business idea.

Most of the news I get comes from blogs. Too bad they cant be printed daily and distributed to my front door.

Print has its uses, however humble.

Old people and government employees. Those are the only two groups that I know of who are still subscribing to newspapers.

I think that content has something to do with it. Newspapers are full of pro-establishment fairy tales and extreme fear-mongering (the Ottawa Citizen on the weekend devoted its entire front page to a panicky story about the Pig Fever non-epidemic as if it was Pearl Harbor or 9/11 – I wasn’t going to waste my time reading their swill but probably they were banging the drum for forced vaccinations and other pre-emptive emergency measures).

The eminent superiority of the internet is that whenever you smell a con job in something you are reading it is only a matter of a couple of clicks to find out the other side of the story, discover the history and credibility of the sources, and read the debate between bloggers and other anonymous persons who sooner or later will expose all of the facts and viewpoints which the newspapers (and radio/tv) would sooner die than acknowledge or help to propagate to the public.

Old people dislike internet news because you have to be fairly nimble to dig up facts quickly and they would rather receive bland reassurance than raise uncomfortable questions about the soundness of their state benefits. Government employees prefer establishment sources of information because they need to know the partly line and only the party line, in order to survive and thrive on the job. Laughing out loud at CO2 or Pig Flu concerns when discussing next year’s budget priorities would be a career-limiting move.

That is why there are more and more calls to rein in the “irresponsible” internet and to make bloggers “accountable”. The gatekeepers are losing control and they will not let newspapers disappear without getting the upper hand over the wild, wild nets.

But again, no reader would be willing to pay for them, and even they are struggling. Some daily rack-and-stacks have recently switched to 3 issues per week.

Papers, particularly tabloid style papers such as The Metro still have direct advertising access to consumers. The effectiveness of internet advertising is not yet proven as far as local businesses in many areas are concerned. Local businesses are justifiably distrustful of advertising on the internet. However, print ads are well understood, and proven.

Not all consumers get news on the internet yet. Some people may never use it. Also, the format of certain sections of newspapers, such as the sports section, letters to the editor, entertainment, etc… are appealing to many consumers. Although internet sites duplicate these formats, consumers might still see them as inferior substitutes.

Also, saying they’d be profitable if they didn’t have debt is a little like saying that we could jump off skyscrapers if there were no gravity. In the real world, the debt is there, and it’s a factor in addition to plummeting advertising dollars and lackluster readership. They could make money if people were willing to actually pay for the newspaper, which they are not.

If they did not have to service that debt, most of these companies would be enormously profitable.