Profit Motives of Newspapers

In America newspapers are privately owned and they are in business to make a profit.  They do this in many ways, one of these being, by selling advertisements at a predetermined rate.  Another, is by selling their newspapers daily, weekly, or monthly.  Some newspapers are even free that are totally supported by advertisers.  They are nevertheless used for promoting companies, organizations, and enterprises.

Big Markets vs. Small Markets

There are big market newspapers.  These are mainly metropolitan publications like the Los Angeles Times, Denver Post, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, and New York Times.  Depending on the population of the areas where they are published, their subscribers may run into millions.  They have to support an organizational base to be able to deliver that many papers to their readers.  Today, these publications have website editions carrying ads that are updated in a timely manner.  These large papers pay their reporters around $60,000 and up per year.  Editors earn about the same and some even more.

Small markets like the Southeast Alaska Island News, Arizona Range News, Beverly Hills Weekly, Akron Hometowner, and West Seattle Herald, appeal to smaller audiences.  Unlike most metropolitan newspapers that are known for their coverage of urban, national and international, sports, and business news, newspapers in smaller markets generally focus more on predominantly local news.  They do not have the budgets to have news personnel  in Washington, London, Rome, nor Paris.  They rely more on AP and UPI wires for snippets of news for which they pay a fee.  Many small town reporters earn around $20,000 to $30,000 per year, while medium sized newspapers pay $35,000 to $55,000.

Newspapers are in the business to make money

Although newspapers provide the public with its informational needs, over the last few years they have seen their importance diminished.  Many people today get information about their communities, nation and world online.  That is why newspapers have changed course and now offer news and information on their websites.  Still, despite these changes, they continue to receive competition from a multiplicity of cable channels like FOX, CNN and MSNBC that are able to report breaking news instantaneously.  It seems that newspapers best selling point is based on those that will like more analysis, objectivity, and reflective reporting of the facts.  Still such reporting may appear after the news cycle.

This is not normally the case of some newspapers in print.  Some however seek to sensationalize their news so as to attract more readers.  In this business there are still those that believe “if it bleeds, it leads.”  Some feel that “if a dog bites a man it’s not news, but if a man bites a dog it’s news.”  As a result we see newspapers  devote much space to stories about war, naural disasters, murders, homicides, manslaughter, rape, and any other form of sexual deviance.  Many people like this type of reporting, that is why they continue to buy tabloids.  The Inquirer is one of the more popular sensational sheets that dishes out this fare.

Such attributes have always been part of the publishing world but with the advent of social media, newspapers were faced with more challenges that led to some belt tightening.  Quality journalism is in the decline with cutbacks at large and small publications.  Journalism schools that were once a dream for many students since the revelations of Watergate have become a vague memory with fewer and fewer jobs out there for students.

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Journalists that are members of the The Newspaper Guild in the U.S. and Canada generally earn more than non members.  Newspapers continue to face many challenges.  They have developed websites to keep abreast of the changing times, but still have problems making ends meet.  As a result they are layoffs which will inevitably undermine the quality of newspapers which is part of the Fourth Estate.

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