commbasics

Lots of people are wondering what it means for Jeff Bezos to buy the venerable Washington Post Company .  Can he make it profitable again.  I say, that's not the question. there is a historical reality that everyone is ignoring about journalism: it wasn't supposed to be profitable. From the beginning of this country, which was in large part launched by a healthy dose of print journalism , newspapers were money pits.  Their primary goal in life was to support a certain cause.  For example, Joseph Pulitzer was Missouri politician who amassed a significant personal wealth.  He bought an interest in one paper, flipped it quickly to another investor and then used that profit to buy another.  He merged the two papers the St. Louis Post Dispatch supporting Republican causes.  His personal wealth continued to grow so he bought the New York World , which was bleeding cash at the time, and went into a frenzied competition for readers with the N...

    Last week we looked at how journalism, as we have known it (pretty much free) has died because no one was willing to support it through advertising anymore.  Today we cover what it means for us. There are two primary issues to be concerned with.  First, as a consumer of content, you will be responsible for the financial support of the media you consume. if you don't want to pay for it, you will be subjected to an unending stream of commercial material created by marketing teams, not actual information. So while the money for that information may come out of a company, you will pay for it by watching advertising 24-7. If you are willing to pay for it through subscription, you will end up putting out about $500 a year to get a variety of content from specific sources (at $99 a pop).  There wills till be ads surrounding the content, but the content itself will be objective.  However, you will also be enlisted to market for the publication e...