An 11 Year Old Questions The Profitability Of Newspapers

Over the holidays I was helping my 11 year old daughter (let's call her CC) with a school project. Her class (she lives in Greece right now) was creating an English newspaper. Since CC is the only native English speaker, she decided to become editor and chief (clearly the apple doesn't fall very far....). She got the kids to all write articles, she aggregated content from her American Girl and National Geographic kids magazines, and she and i created a bunch of Sudukos and crossword puzzles from the net.

In the end, we had 5 pages back and front. The we had to photo copy them which we did at the local Staples for about 7cents a copy costing us 70cents an issue. We made 20 issues for a total of $14 and then of course god love Canada, we had our 14% tax on top for a grand total of $15.96.

CC looks at me dismayed -

"but Mommy, I was going to sell the papers for .50 Euro a paper (that's basically .70 cents Cnd). That means if I have to pay you, I won't have any money left over! And I told the class that we were going to split the money! Why would anyone make a newspaper? This is stupid!"

And now for your reading pleasure linked to from Fading to Black blog, David Letterman's Top 10 List On How You Know Your Newspapers In Trouble