Would newspapers sell more copies if they returned to investigative journalism and better cover local news?
I doubt it. Too much competition from blogs and investigative reporting on the web. By the time a newspaper gets delivered, even 8 hours later, it’s old news. The only way newspapers can return to profitability is to charge for content online. The retail print advertising model is dead. Online advertising is much cheaper online but doesn’t generate enough revenue to support media outlets alone without reader subscription income. I don’t know what the solution needs to be. I’m a news junkie and a voracious reader, but I have no patience with any media that delivers week-old news bites, newspaper or otherwise. My loyalty to my local newpaper long outlived the value of its content. When the piles of unread papers began to consume more space than they deserved, we painfully stopped our subscription a couple of years ago.
