There is a phenomenon that very people know but that is an open secret in the media industry.
Journalists are instructed to not investigate / hit hard the corporations that buy ads. Because if they do that, there might be serious consequences.
Take for instance the newspaper Le Monde.
After they published an investigation into Bernard Arnault's offshore tax affairs, Arnault ordered to punish them by withdrawing all LVMH ads for months.
In the United Kingdom, The Telegraph refused to publish information about HSBC's illegal tax affairs, out of fear of offending HSBC, which is a major advertiser
This is a really good news.
Advertising is a cancer to quality information.
Most newspapers have two main sources of funding.
A) Subscribers
B) Advertisers.
There is a phenomenon that very people know but that is an open secret in the media industry.
Journalists are instructed to not investigate / hit hard the corporations that buy ads. Because if they do that, there might be serious consequences.
Take for instance the newspaper Le Monde.
After they published an investigation into Bernard Arnault's offshore tax affairs, Arnault ordered to punish them by withdrawing all LVMH ads for months.
The newspaper lost 600,000 euros.
https://www.challenges.fr/media/agace-par-les-paradise-papers-bernard-arnault-sanctionne-le-monde_513365
In the United Kingdom, The Telegraph refused to publish information about HSBC's illegal tax affairs, out of fear of offending HSBC, which is a major advertiser
https://www.ft.com/content/d63f2d46-b6cf-11e4-a33b-00144feab7de
There are so many examples.
It's very well illustrated by Noam Chomsky in his book "Manufacturing Consent"
Thanks for sharing your views and the references
I'm all for this - I do think we are headed in the right direction where people pay for content.
The only flip side I see is further entrenchments of echo chambers (but that risk is also present in non paid content)