Newspapers no longer dominate as online news sources have replaced “the paper” in readership and advertising revenue in the United States.

They’ve been concerned about this trend for about 10 years or so. Why pay for leftist bias that passes as news when you can choose the news you want (left, right or in the middle) for free?

Oh no! The elites in the news biz know best, and like all elites, they’re wrong, all of the time.

Some newspapers may attempt an online pay service, that would be a mistake because they always fail. The Winnipeg Free Press tried it and quickly discovered it attracted no readers to speak of. In other words, they lost money, and are now free to read, relying on advertising and the market, like it should be.

Like the definition of insanity, which is repeating the same actions while expecting a different result, undoubtedly more and more newspapers will revert to an online pay service of some form, and every one of them will eventually fail.

NEW YORK – For the first time, online readership and advertising revenue in the United States has surpassed that of print newspapers.

The State of the News Media report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism showed that more people — 46 percent of Americans surveyed — said they get news online at least three times a week, versus 40 percent who said they get their news from newspapers and their websites.

“The migration to the Web is accelerating,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. “The quick adoption of the tablet (computer) and the spread of the smartphone is only adding to that.” ….

However of the three dozen newspapers that have moved to some sort of online pay model, only 1 percent of users opted to pay. Read the full story