The Daily Planet announced a 60% decline in 2009 ad revenues (October 22, 2009).  Since making that announcement, the Daily Planet has lost additional key accounts, so that the true decline may be in the neighborhood of 80%.  O’Malley blames the economy.  However, its competitor, The East Bay Express, has seen a large increase in ad revenues in 2009, and has turned solidly profitable.

The locally owned East Bay Express maintains very high journalistic standards, provides its readers with in depth stories, including great investigative pieces.  And it accomplishes this without being a purveyor of hate.

This proves that good journalism can still thrive in the Bay Area.  We congratulate the East Bay Express on its magnificent results. 

The Daily Planet has chosen a very different business model.  It has decided to be a hard left echo chamber, a  purveyor of hate, a happy home for conspiracy theorists, a vanity outlet for its untalented and barely literate editor, Becky O’Malley, and to be journalistically malfeasant in almost every other way (e.g., it refuses to do even rudimentary fact checking).  The unsurprising result is that advertisers have fled en masse.   Most remaining advertisers are ideological fellow travels, with more regard for political grandstanding than an actual eye to business. See here.  

What the Daily Planet has lost in advertising support it hopes to make up in love offerings from its radical base (despite the fact that it is not a tax deductible nonprofit).  This is an unusual business model, to say the least, with results pending.