Now, the Standard was never a good paper even in the 90s or 00s, but London needs a good daily. Obviously, it was damaged by the pandemic, but even before then it had been run into the ground, and stupid decisions had been made, e.g. turning it into a freesheet. You need a good business model to pay reporters, and I very much doubt the Internet will ever deliver this.
Not sure if serious? Nobody buys newspapers anymore.
Your best bet to pay journalists is (in order of preference) a hefty trust fund, billionaire owners or programmatic advertising (delivered via the internet).
Running a daily newspaper in London should really be about as difficult as running a piss-up in a brewery, Internet or not. However:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/may/29/london-evening-standard-close-daily-newspaper-launch-new-weekly
Now, the Standard was never a good paper even in the 90s or 00s, but London needs a good daily. Obviously, it was damaged by the pandemic, but even before then it had been run into the ground, and stupid decisions had been made, e.g. turning it into a freesheet. You need a good business model to pay reporters, and I very much doubt the Internet will ever deliver this.