Kind of like ExxonMobil wants to sell more oil, Toyota wants to sell more cars, and Microsoft wants to sell more copies of MS Office.

Obviously, there will be disagreements on how to go about increasing circulation, but if you could find an avenue that was guaranteed to increase circulation, everyone would probably get behind it quickly.

As a hypothetical, if you could prove that having a Page 3 girl would increase the Gazette's circulation, the "professional" journalists would almost certainly grumble about it, demeaning, whatever, all that jazz - but if the alternative is layoffs, well, then everyone knows where their bread is buttered.

To imply otherwise - that all stakeholders aren't interested in increasing circulation, in favor of high-minded principle - is pure fatuousness.

Also, by extension, this goes to other media as well: magazines want to sell more magazines, TV news wants to increase its share (or at least break even), etc. Everyone is always looking for that magic bullet, and it may not please every single segment of the operation (editorial, advertising, printing, journalists, etc.), but they'll all fall in line in pretty short order.

I would though like to throw in something else. I recently looked at the Amazon Kindle version of the Gazette. No ads!. Just the stories that are from the Gazette. No special ad section as well. Lower price than the actual hard copy per month. Might this be what the industry needs. Subscribers pay for their paper. Delivered electronically. No ads. And the Newspaper company saves on hard copy delivery costs?

The idea is not perfect though. People would have to purchase a Amazon Kindle. I like the idea of a hard copy of a newspaper or book that I can pass on. But, if it keeps advertisers at bay from effecting editorial, journalists, etc. Perhaps a better option!?

But otherwise, money is a more important factor than importance

Truer words were never written.

Some folks say that, because newspapers (and media in general) are corporate-owned, they represent only the interests of the corporate and economic elite. Others are of the opinion that, because most journalists tend to self-identify with liberal politics, the media is a bunch of raving loony socialists who think they are going to be the next Woodward & Bernstein.

In my honest opinion, the only ideology that newspapers is in favor of, is selling more newspapers. If they can accomplish that with left-wing politics or right-wing politics or middle-of-the-road-politics or hard-hitting investigative journalism or an entire tabloid full of nothing but Page 3 girls, fine.