Following Perfect Market's release today of the Vault Index and Infographic, which shows that serious news stories have markets for both audience and advertisers, a reporter asked this question, which is worth addressing:

Does the Lindsay Lohan piece at $2.50 actually net less total revenue than a $26 immigration story? Or does it still pay off well because it gets so many more hits? If the serious stories draw high CPM, why are there so many sites doing Lohan and so few doing immigration?

The Lindsay Lohan story did net less revenue than Immigration for news sites (sites like TMZ and other entertainment sites weren't considered in this analysis). We don't know about how many sites are doing Lindsay Lohan vs. immigration – in the case of news sites they seem to do both. The traffic difference is not as great as you might think.