It doesn’t make financial sense to operate a newspaper. The FT generates 35M of profit per year on over 500M in revenues. That’s what, 7%? The reason to own a newspaper is influence: gossip.
Now the financial times is, like the Journal, a financial rather than political newspaper. So by definition it’s an empirical and heroic medium rather than one of complaining, for the purpose of rallying shaming, and power accumulation.
I went through five daily issues of Canada’s main newspaper a few years ago, circling correspondent articles (what I consider truthful) and you could find about three small articles a day. The rest were entertainment, created by appealing to the anglosphere’s erroneous sense of moral superiority.
In other words, the newspaper business sells advertising to marketers, and then consumers buy signaling: a form of conspicuous consumption, that carries signals.
And quite the opposite of what we expected: people are not able to insulate themselves from the most influential drug after sex: signals of moral fitness.
If we look at the evolutionary reasons why this all works, it’s obvious: moral fitness makes us generous, and moral violation makes us punish.
But we should look at the non-financial media as what they are: drug dealers.
They’re causing suicide through addiction.