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Comment by psyklic | Hacker News Reader

You're telling the papers to: (1) Get rid of their largest revenue stream (advertising), and (2) Increase spending (more reporters).

How does that work?

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By (3) reducing costs by eliminating the need for a massive amount of the company.

I'd be surprised beyond belief if it turns out they paid their reporting wing of the company more than they (collectively) paid their printing and distribution wings. And remember that the distribution includes all shipments US / worldwide, and all end-point delivery people.

I'm telling them to get rid of their biggest cost: printing and distribution.

Also, I'm not saying they should get rid of the classifieds section, which is a big chunk (about half? hard to find any data on it) of their advertising income.

As for reporters: they're cheap. In the range of $40-100k (from quick Google search) a year for a New York Times reporter. Much less at other papers. Hire 10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud in San Francisco and I'd be happy to plunk down a subscription fee.

"Hire 10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud"

Isn't that actually the job of the police?

The police investigates crimes that have already been observed. Journalists have the freedom to investigate potential crimes based on their gut feeling. Recall Enron - a police officer standing anywhere in Headquarters would have missed a crime. However, some pesky reporters asking too many questions brought the whole operation to its knees.

>>>Isn't that actually the job of the police?

What? No. Police are not investigators. They are there to arrest -- or use force -- period. They are intake and barriers, not processing.

I used to believe that the IT department at my work didn't need more than 10 programmers.

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