I like the coupons....
And yet, if you ask newspapermen if an alternative sustainable business model does, or even if one could exist, they will adamantly deny that such a thing is possible. To them, it is heretical. And therein lies the problem.
If I was going to start a newspaper today, it would have several new ideas. To start with, newspapers don’t need “journalists”, they need “reporters”. Even though most US universities offer them, journalism degrees are not just worthless, but undesirable.
Newspapers can survive only if they provide news not provided elsewhere, or in a form that would take hours to get elsewhere.
All newspapers are “local” newspapers, as well. Reporters need local beats, and to know the people in their beats. Local people need to see and read themselves in the paper.
Newspapers need profitability based on subscriptions, not advertising. People will pay more for a slender paper that is mostly news, instead of a fat paper that is mostly ads. An exception are coupons.
Newspapers need to be part of the community. This means that people call the newspaper when something is happening, or is going to happen. The newspaper can also shell out a little money to sponsor local events.
Newspapers aren’t rocket science. More money has to flow in than is paid out. It isn’t the newspaper’s job to ruin lives and make people angry, to tout local radicals or to twist elections.
the reporters love reading what they’ve written, however the subscribers find the content unreliable and full of total hogwash so you have to pay the readers to read it
"They have the possibility of nearly unending losses. ... I do not see anything on the horizon that sees that erosion coming to an end."
Then this:
Buffett said Berkshire would hold on to the Buffalo News, a daily newspaper in the New York state city of the same name, if only because Berkshire buys businesses for the long term and does not sell simply because the companies hit a rough patch.
So he's going to hold The Buffalo News and WPO until they go to zero? This is a see change not a rough patch. Buffett had one of the best runs in history. Guess even the Oracle regresses to the mean.