Metro papers like the Boston Globe and Dallas Morning News that have adopted a high price/high quality circulation strategy know readers will not be satisfied with skinny papers that have little worth reading. So those newsrooms are protected and, in a few cases, growing.

Other individual papers or chains, especially those that are debt-free, like Scripps or A.C.Belo, are willing to operate at break even or at a modest loss for now to keep the news core strong and invest in a range of digital startups.

Quality sells. New business takes investment.

Who knew?