The sale of the Washington Post is a watershed moment in the history of text journalism. When one of the most well-respected papers in the nation, which covers the political goings-on of the most powerful country in the world, is having trouble sustaining itself through traditional revenue means, it is a given that something's gotta give.

What, then, should have given? For the Washington Post, not much, really, but that was because of their purchase by billionaire tech mogul Jeff Bezos. Bezos claimed in the above linked article that he would give the Post time (via money) to experiment, but the implication there is that eventually they would have to get it right, and that simply may not be a viable option.

What does it mean, to get it right? The New York Times is the gold standard of hard news; they've pretty much gotten that right. As their last quarter financials show, however, they've also been by and large getting things right from a fiscal perspective. They've got around $350 million in revenues, they're turning a higher profit in fall 2013 as opposed to their year-to-date for 2012 (13 vs 9 million, roughly, and they're a billion dollar company, what could be better?

Better would be not taking a look at their digital revenues from subscriptions. To quote the report: “The total number of digital subscribers at the end of the third quarter was approximately 727,000, a 28 percent year-on-year increase.” Sounds good, right? Well, counter-intuitively, “Total advertising revenues declined 2.0 percent in the quarter – the lowest quarterly year-on-year decline in advertising in three years.” So a 28 percent increase in digital subscriptions... and a 2 percent decrease in ad revenue. That type of increase not being able to generate any ad profit is a huge disappointment. Now, it's true that the subscription model generated $110 million in 2013 for the Times... but that's the New York Times. Imagine if you're a small website with no subscription base; all you generate money from is ad revenue. Your outlook is grim indeed if even the Times can't do the theoretically simple math of transforming viewer growth into profit.

And that's the fundamental question, isn't it? How to turn some ad revenue. Clearly, the Times model only works if people are paying. If they're not, and you spend all that time getting increased viewers, only to actually lose ad revenue... pretty soon you're out of business. It looks like, basically, it doesn't matter if you go with clickbait or not, the whole enterprise of ad-subsidized web pages is an endangered idea. If you're in the game to make a quick buck and get out of here, you might as well clickbait your titles till the cows come home. If not, you better get ready for a bumpy ride.