True enough, but the cost was heavily subsidized for most of the 18-and-1900s. First by the political parties, labor unions, and advocacy groups that owned the papers, and then later by advertisers, classifieds, movie showtimes, etc.
Recent decades have seen more of that cost passed to consumers.
People used to make the per-issue cost of a newspaper deliberately cheap to get people in the door to read their political editorials, the actual reportage, weather, comic strips and all that was just a loss leader for their real goals.
if the news is free someone's paying for it (like, say, the government) and then you get people saying the journalists are in whoever's pocket. like sorry how are folks supposed to fuckin eat
Comments
Recent decades have seen more of that cost passed to consumers.