Don't forget classified ads either. Historically the rule of thumb is that subscriptions and newsstand sales would more-or-less cover the cost of ink and paper. Ads (and especially classified ads, which were an enormous money spinner) paid for the actual journalism.
The moment the internet gutted ad revenue, this stopped being viable.
As you say, journalism made the news prestigious, but the news didn't actually make money either; it was just there to get eyeballs onto the ads.
I would disagree somehow. You are right that classified makes money. However; news was not freely available as it is today and thus I would say that news was actually something people used to pay for. It was not as lucrative as the classified but it was a major contributor to people actually buying newspapers. They simple did not have another choice if they wanted to know what was going on.
> It was not as lucrative as the classified but it was a major contributor to people actually buying newspapers. They simple did not have another choice if they wanted to know what was going on.
Yes, absolutely. But the point is that while maybe people wouldn't have bought a newspaper that didn't have news, they still weren't willing to pay for the news component. When offered a choice between not having news and paying the actual cost if providing it, people have always opted against paying for it.
An obvious analogy is search engines. It's a useful and valuable service, but so far, users have not been willing to pay for the cost of providing one. Every search engine exists either as a loss making venture or is used as traffic/data generation for something profitable which cross-subsidises it. (Even DDG is profitable only due to their ads.)
The moment the internet gutted ad revenue, this stopped being viable.
As you say, journalism made the news prestigious, but the news didn't actually make money either; it was just there to get eyeballs onto the ads.