As a rule, most of the US newspapers are run by some of the most clueless fools I have ever had the misfortune of watching in action. While they maintain a fantastic staff of reporters, their “bosses” appear to be huffing glue before making their business decisions. Blocking websites from linking to their sites, wishing Google would stop attracting ad revenue instead of it being placed with newspapers, the list goes on.

The dumbest of all of the newspaper ideas that I have seen are those who ask you to subscribe for a fee, when often times the same content is available elsewhere for free. This is not to say that I would not be willing to pay for the content, but truth be told, the ad revenue model is a stronger one that the paid subscription model. Just ask Google.

Services like Craigslist and web based advertising has all but destroyed the never-effective newspaper ad model. And to make matters worse, these same newspapers still cannot get their heads out of the backsides and come on board with making their content available in an ad supported format. Those newspapers that do however, will work through this economic crunch, despite it being hard on them.