How advertising everywhere caused the fall of journalism.

The fall of journalism: The advertising collapse no one wants to admit

The real business media houses were built on

The fall of journalism is often blamed on declining standards, political pressure, social media misinformation or a supposed lack of public interest in serious reporting. Those explanations are comforting because they frame the crisis as cultural or ideological. The truth is far less romantic and far more structural. Traditional media houses are closing because their core business model has collapsed, and that model was never news. It was advertising.

For more than a century, newspapers, radio stations and television networks existed as intermediaries between advertisers and audiences. Journalism was the product that attracted attention. Advertising was the product that paid the bills. The reporting mattered, but financially it functioned as a delivery mechanism. Media companies sold access to people, not information to readers. The public paid a small cover price or licence fee that never reflected the true cost of reporting. The real revenue came from businesses paying to place messages beside trusted content.

This arrangement worked because attention was scarce and distribution was expensive. Printing presses, broadcast towers and distribution networks created natural monopolies. If you wanted to reach a city, a region or a nation, you needed the local paper or the dominant broadcaster. Advertisers had limited alternatives, and media houses controlled the gateway.

That world no longer exists.