[writepub]

Internet killed the paper star. Before news went online, good, reliable content was paid for with subscriptions.

Going online, paired with the rise of social media changed what it meant for content to be "good" - redefined it to share worthy and click based, monetized mostly by ads. Now, no one, including the famed NYT does good classical journalism - they do what gets them shares and clicks.

On closer examination of social media demographics, you can see why news has pivoted to opinion - because millennials share and click more of it, especially the opinions they approve of.

A demographic shift in HN user base is also likely the reason for more opinion making it to the top of the charts

[imgabe]

Subscriptions were never the only revenue source for newspapers. They have always had ads.

[Fnoord]

There was a time when subscriptions had little to no ads, and ads were clearly marked as such. Now we have ads all over the place, videos autoplaying, and "influencers" (read: shady salesmen).

Now, before "the internet" (read: its commercial, world-wide success), in-depth research was costly, and it could not be copied easily. Newspapers had a reputation to hold up. It was easier to compete on information. Now the competition is much more fierce, and many people make/share news gratis, so it ends up competing with "free" is difficult.

As for NYT, there's some good people working there like Runa Sandvik, but I guess it works like every large news organization...