This is such a critical thing to understand. No one understands the true cost, because no one has ever paid for the news, it's always been advertisers. And now, for whatever reasons, advertisers don't want to pay for the digital equivalent, and they don't seem to be coming around.

This correlates to brandnewlow's comment above as well. It would be fascinating to see a news source that was paid for entirely by customers and thus not beholden to advertisers--something like HBO. But it would very hard to sell such a thing, because $15-$30/month for news, historically speaking, seems insanely high.