ABSTRACT
It is no secret that newspapers, in a democracy, depend on advertising for their survival. In the absence of government control and ownership, newspapers have had to find a way to not only survive, but thrive. They quickly learned they could not count on subscribers to pay most of the bills, but they found willing patterns in the merchants of the day (Emery & Emery, 1988). The integration of editorial matter-“news”—and advertising has long been an accepted practice in the United States and much of the democratic world (Siebert, Peterson, & Schramm, 1956). It also has been questioned by media scholars and consumers who often see a blurring between editorial material and news (Lacher & Rotfield, 1994; Soley & Craig, 1992). Consumers are caught in the middle of this debate: They want their information free from bias, they want the informational content of the advertising, and above all, they want inexpensive newspapers. It is a rare publication that can be supported only by subscription dollars.
