The US Newsindustry is in Decline and how to solve it
Newspaper need to move to a nonprofit model. Newspaper can contiune to use advertising to collect revenue but for-the profit model has failed. The LA Times is losing lots of people and yet the LA TImes provides superior reporting on a lot of issues. Moving to a non-profit model will preserve the newspaper industry.
This is the solution. We have to start see newspaper as a public good. Public good are defined as
"In economics, a public good is a good that is non-rivaled and non-excludable. This means, respectively, that consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others; and that no one can be effectively excluded from using the good.[1] In the real world, there may be no such thing as an absolutely non-rivaled and non-excludable good; but economists think that some goods approximate the concept closely enough for the analysis to be economically useful."
Currently, our society is treating this issue as a private good. Private good are defined as
"A private good is defined in economics as a good that exhibits these properties:
Excludable - it is reasonably possible to prevent a class of consumers (e.g. those who have not paid for it) from consuming the good.
Rivalrous - consumptions by one consumer prevents simultaneous consumption by other consumers. Private goods satisfies an individual want while public good satisfies a collective want of the society.
A private good is the opposite of a public good, as they are almost exclusively made for profit."
In reality, it is public good so therefore, the model needs to move to a nonprofit model. This move alone will halt the bleeding of newsrooms.
At one time, this model was a private good but in this era, this needs to be seen as a public good. That is the solution. Nobody within the news industry is willing to admit to that. But Sam Zell does control the LA Times and so I am going to be nasty with Mr. Zell on this issue because that is my primary newspaper. Once Mr. Zell realises that the LA Times is a public good and not a private good, than the blood-letting at the LA TImes will end. It is that simple.