Secondly, these journalists (and seemingly the investors behind their companies), don’t know how to properly evaluate the web business and therefore miss the point completely. They look at a site with similar traffic to their readership and if it’s not pulling in comparable revenue, they see it as a failure. I’m certain that cnn.com, albeit one of the most trafficked sites in the world, pulls in only a fraction of what the network makes – perhaps that’s why no one mentioned it. But what they don’t realize is that proves nothing. One of the more interesting points was made from the New York Post journalist when he was speaking on advertisers on televised media. He said that although the viewers may be dwindling (what was once 20 million is now 15 million), advertisers still want to spend to reach that 15 million. Why? Because they have years upon years of experience in reaching consumers in that medium. The same goes for print. Both publishers and advertisers would be pleased for the consumer’s behavior not to change. Maybe that’s why advertisers are resisting the change as much as the print publishers. Either way, the consumers don’t care, their moving online and not looking back – even David Carr admitted that.

So perhaps the answer to the question: “Why do eyeballs in print media bring in more revenue than eyeballs online?” is simple economics. For the short term, the supply far exceeds the demand. Of course as the readership in print continues to evaporate, advertisers will have to learn a new art form, and advertising dollars will flow elsewhere. Cnn.com will be sitting pretty, and the print dinosaurs will lament their short sightedness.

And in response to a point Michael Wolff made about the reason web media makes less money is because it’s more cost effective. What? The suggestion that advertisers will spend less money on advertising because advertising has become more effective is a comically flawed theory. Had he not extended his freshmen summer vaca and missed the first day of Econ 1 he would have learned that technology booms expand economies not vice versa. Regardless, whoever does end up paying his salary 10 years from now, it certainly won’t be The Economist. I still love VF, however, on the rare occasion I have time to read it.

Why not ask the Entrepreneurs who will actually create the changes?!

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