The ad-news tension really isn't that
One of the more frequent comments we get from readers is that we publish too many ads. Get rid of the ads and print more news, they say. It's an interesting complaint because advertising pays the bulk of the cost of publishing a newspaper. The more ads, the healthier the paper. Getting rid of them would be problematic. Actually the better response is to publish more ads so you can print more news.
Jeff Thomas, editor of the Gazette in Colorado Springs, details the advertising-news balance in the paper well.
One relevant point he doesn't mention: those who complain about the number of ads tend to be over 65. And no, it's is not just men who say it.
Fortunately for our financial health, we get an almost equal number of comments from people who say they buy the paper specifically to get the ads and coupons. Perhaps not surprisingly, they tend to be under 50. We journalists just hope that they may discover an interesting story on their way to the ad search.