1) "Potential readers" is limited to people who can afford newspapers. NY Times runs around $520 per year in paper, at 2020 printing and delivery costs, and around $100 digitally. Printing and delivery costs, as portion of GDP-per-capita, were much higher in 1921. In 1921, the audience was extremely exclusive. An online audience is more democratic, and ergo, less educated.
2) Newspapers aren't driven by selling papers, so much as by organizational dynamics. I need to satisfy my boss and my peers to keep my job. Sales is one aspect of that, and as organizations grow in size, a decreasing aspect. As far as I can tell, NY Times has hired a bunch of idiots, and a lot of the most competent reporters are heading fast for the door.
Many companies which go under do so because of bad culture, often resulting from wildly misaligned incentives, good people leaving, bad people failing to bring in new good people, and so on. I think NY Times is slowly heading that way. I've seen few organizations able to claw back from where it is. Facebook and Google are moving in that direction too, for that matter.
1) "Potential readers" is limited to people who can afford newspapers. NY Times runs around $520 per year in paper, at 2020 printing and delivery costs, and around $100 digitally. Printing and delivery costs, as portion of GDP-per-capita, were much higher in 1921. In 1921, the audience was extremely exclusive. An online audience is more democratic, and ergo, less educated.
2) Newspapers aren't driven by selling papers, so much as by organizational dynamics. I need to satisfy my boss and my peers to keep my job. Sales is one aspect of that, and as organizations grow in size, a decreasing aspect. As far as I can tell, NY Times has hired a bunch of idiots, and a lot of the most competent reporters are heading fast for the door.
Many companies which go under do so because of bad culture, often resulting from wildly misaligned incentives, good people leaving, bad people failing to bring in new good people, and so on. I think NY Times is slowly heading that way. I've seen few organizations able to claw back from where it is. Facebook and Google are moving in that direction too, for that matter.