Part of that concept is the implied outcome that once media is paid for by readers it will no longer engage in undesirable practices for revenue, like advertorials and shock content; but this is somewhat of a myth. Those shady practices were common before the Internet, and they'll be common even if media returns to a subscription service model.

What you need is a well-funded, and non-profit public news media. It's not without its faults, but it certainly shines where private news media consistently fails to.

Hmm, any examples of journalist-owned media engaging in such practices? I can think of at least 6 of them who don't (and don't have ads either).

I'd give examples of independent journalists, particularly vloggers, who produce shock content of questionable merit, or who regularly publish promoted content; but I think you can identify them yourself.

Right, I didn't think about individuals... though b/vloggers that aren't already journalists generally don't have the pretension of following journalistic norms ?

> If we do not pay for news, news has to be financed through online advertising

Agreed.

> which is basically selling personal data for profit

Not necessarily. Mostly untargeted display ads don't. They could profit from personal data as much as TV or newspaper ads. They also yield a lot worse; my point is that it's possible to run ads that don't actually use personal data.

My bigger concern with ad-funded journalism is it encourages stories and headlines that get clicks, not stories that are important. Journalism isn't supposed to be entertainment.