This from 8 December, but the detail of this US post on news value is worth a read, if you haven’t picked it up before. In its last section it raises some “grim conclusions” for reporters. Aptly, it’s from the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal Digital Network.
“If news websites give away their content, they must earn their revenues through advertising. A mainstream, general-interest news site typically earns around 2 cents in advertising revenue per page view,” writes Brett Arends.
(…)
“They [reporters] will have to live on the page views their stories generate, and the most they can earn is around 2 cents per story viewed. After factoring in the overhead for running a professional news organization – editors, managers, offices, technology, benefits, support and the like – they’ll probably be lucky to earn 1.5 cents.
“Someone hoping to earn, say, $40,000 a year as a professional journalist is probably going to need to generate around 2.7 million page views a year to do so. Assuming he or she works five days a week, 50 weeks a year, that’s nearly 11,000 page views a day.”
“Someone hoping to earn, say, $100,000 a year will need to generate about 27,000 page views a day.”