It is no secret that the newspaper industry is suffering but several journalists who work with online newspapers believe that the future of the industry will be saved with the help of web advertisements. The Online News Association conducted a survey of approximately 300 journalists and the vast majority of them said that the news industry will find a way to stay profitable.

The survey questioned the journalists as to how online news sites would be able to turn a profit in the future. Around 60 per cent of respondents said that web advertisements would be the most likely way to generate revenue in the next few years.

Print publications have slowly begun to realize that their readership base is shrinking. In most cases, the good news is that these same readers are heading online to read the information. A great example of this is a major newspaper like the New York Times. Every month this site receives millions and millions of unique clicks.

While their subscriber bases might have receded, the customers are still reading the news. The only thing that print publications need to do now is figure out how to generate the revenues from their online readers to make up for what they might have lost through the print side. With web advertising continually growing, it seems like the perfect opportunity for a number of these publications to cash in on.

Perhaps this strategy is oversimplified and it could prove to be ineffective. Rupert Murdoch recently noted that web advertising rates were simply too low.