[10ren]

One original purpose of newspapers seemed to to advocate political views, a factor which waned, then waxed as the industry consolidated. http://www.historicpages.com/nprhist.htm Another factor was timely reporting of battles. In the origins of the telegraph, the transmission of gold and stock prices was one driving factor.

Of course, newspapers make money from advertisements, not directly from content. The business purpose of content is to attract eyeballs... the same business model of many web-based startups.

For pure content creation in the news area, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuters is the best model I've seen. Every news provider seems to buy their content.