Nearly there

Talking about the US newspaper business:

Its theme is a prevailing article of faith among many in the news business: newspapers spend money generating valuable and socially relevant content;

Or perhaps we should say not anywhere near there at all.

You see, the fact that you spend money creating something does not make that something valuable. It isn\’t true that the value of something is the labour (or the resources) that go into its manufacture.

Value is in the eye of the beholder and the aim is to combine resources so as to produce something which is perceived to have a higher value than the perceived value of those original resources. This how you make a profit.

Making a loss is (with caveats) an indication that you\’re not adding value to the resources you\’re using. Thus you shouldn\’t be doing it.

Or, to put this the other way around, what the US newspapers need to ask themselves is, do consumers value what we produce more than the cost to us of producing it?

I have a feeling that the answer is no, so they really should be working out ways of doing something different.