A newspaper that includes a dedicated classifieds ads section? Fine. A newpaper that runs advertising through its editorial sections? Not fine, and the influence of advertising accounts held by major corporations with newspapers on how and what news is written is well known.
I'd argue that most newspapers and magazines that ran advertising were toxic too and played a large part in promoting the consumer culture that took hold in the 20th century and helped to push harmful products that would not have been taken up nearly as widely without huge advertising spends (cigarettes, sugary breakfast cereals, soft drinks, etc). But with a printed product sold as a bundled package of editorial and advertising it was hard for the consumer to protect themselves from the harmful advertising. Now, when content is delivered digitally and we have the means to screen out the unwanted advertising we'd be fools to not do so (and fools to be convinced by a bogus argument that we need to pollute our brains as our part of a supposed 'deal').
Do you know of a general-purpose newspaper / news site that does this well? I thought of LWN when I read this, but of course I'm not going to use them as my primary source of general news.
Substack and Patreon both facilitate exactly this in theory. In practice, you still have to find the individual authors or content producers that fit your desired criteria.
I'd argue that most newspapers and magazines that ran advertising were toxic too and played a large part in promoting the consumer culture that took hold in the 20th century and helped to push harmful products that would not have been taken up nearly as widely without huge advertising spends (cigarettes, sugary breakfast cereals, soft drinks, etc). But with a printed product sold as a bundled package of editorial and advertising it was hard for the consumer to protect themselves from the harmful advertising. Now, when content is delivered digitally and we have the means to screen out the unwanted advertising we'd be fools to not do so (and fools to be convinced by a bogus argument that we need to pollute our brains as our part of a supposed 'deal').