Where's the law that says I have to view web content as it's creators intend? You send me a stream of data, I decide what to do with it, what parts to render, what parts to ignore.
I'm not trying to guilt anyone into anything but this will be a an interesting field to watch in the coming years. How will journalism fund itself and maintain some semblance of integrity? If the ad revenues fall it will be a bumpy ride indeed.
I would like to read articles that haven't been self-censored to keep potential advertisers happy.
For me, journalism needs to figure out other funding models to regain some semblance of integrity.
Owners tend to exert some sort of editorial control, making the coverage slanted towards their end-goal.
Advertisers tend to be unpalatable to the reader, sometimes editorial control is a problem but that sometimes means there's an editorial problem (advertisers stop using a paper due to consumer pressure).
Subscription means your content is not as widely distributed as it could be. Yes we want to get paid but primarily journalists are in it to be read. Getting that many people to part with money is also a hard problem when compared to the other two sources.
i suspect journalists can do that by asking for a larger subscription. If society truly values the work of journalists, instead of it being a conduit for advertising, then it will be paid accordingly. If not, then, yes, it's a shame, but it really means that nobody values the work of a true journalist (especially investigative journalism), and it will die out. But that's reality, as sad as it would be if it were to be true.
> I find your fatalism disheartening.
It's not fatalism but rather a political statement.
OP argues from within the superficial logic of capitalist exchange: the value of a commodity is whether and for how much it sells.
Uninterestingly enough, the thing which the OP will not be sad to kill is investigative journalism, which is pretty much the only branch of intellectual work that can undo the corruption that is brought on by the above psychotic logic.
What you think is fatalism is actually poorly disguised pro-corruption propaganda.
No matter what system we think of, the powers at be will always try to influence the press and information. We can also see that in the current system, where large stakeholders can pressure/influence journalists and publications. I don't think the state has a monopoly here, on the contrary.
Merchandising could be prints of artwork, cartoons, expanded versions of articles or source materials as well as branded things like coffee mugs.
The key is being lean to start and developing an endowment so you don't always have to be seeking dollars (NPR fund drives bad). Offer high value, medium to high priced merchandise, keep your journalistic standards high with a low supply of advertising (keeping demand high).
Endowment contributors will be motivated by a history of quality journalism and the fact that you open your content to the public after a certain reasonably short time. If you give people a way to buy it without abusing DRM or being otherwise obnoxious, people will pay.
For anyone unfamiliar with Krugman here's an example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/opinion/paul-krugman-dodd-...
So I assume, then, that they have some way of tracking whether the ad was presented to the end-user?
How many people (living, breathing, checkbook-possessing people) actually see an ad is an entirely different question from how many it is served to, and there is (of course) a whole 'nother area of ad tech companies working in that space.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/?ref_=ttep_ep2
You have to pay to skip ads.