Historically, (roughly), ads paid for the newspaper content and subscriptions (and newsstand sales) paid for the physical paper and distribution. But advertising rates have also gone way down (and classified ads, which were a huge money-maker, are basically gone) so it's not really comparable.
I think newspapers mostly report the news. They also have things called opinion pages but those tend to be clearly marked as such and then there is this thing called advertising.
No, it's not. Ad-supported newspapers are older than postal mail being largely advertising subsidizing other mail. Older than the US Post Office (and the US, even in North America), too.
what on earth are you talking about? newspapers have existed to control the narrative since inception. look at how they’ve been used, and listen to the lead editors talk about using their influence.
it’s a slightly less targeted ad, sure, but my dad only reads conservative papers, and they don’t seem to be written with a common perspective
It used to be normal in the news paper industry to have a hard dividing line between the "news" and "advertising" departments for this very reason. There was always a conflict of interest possible when newspapers reported on the companies placing ads with them. I'm not sure how true this is any more.
Political ads.
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