This is smart. Good journalism has never paid for itself (classifieds, paid subs, ads, etc), and it never will. With most of the old revenue diluted, anyone who wants to do good journalism needs a way to pay for it, and this model (invented by BuzzFeed) is a solid effort.<p>Basically, you drive massive traffic with high-quality, low-brow content, and sell ads against that content to make enough money to pay for expensive, important, ongoing journalism.<p>BuzzFeed started with the viral stuff and moved into journalism, and Washington Post is doing the reverse. It&#x27;s particularly good because viral sites have notoriously low CPMs and shitty ads (&quot;1 weird trick&quot; etc), but when you build a brand known for credible news and pair it with credible (albeit low-brow) viral stuff, you can sell ads to better brands at higher rates – thus increasing your ability to pay for important reporting.<p>It&#x27;s the most viable model I&#x27;ve seen in a while for long-term sustainable journalism businesses.