The Guardian has an opinion piece from Yale professors Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres arguing for a national endowment for investigative journalism.
They rightly recognize, as we do, that it is not about saving newspapers but saving news. They argue that, rather than the options of charity subsidized reporting or public broadcasters, a national endowment should fund investigative projects.
There is a third way out. We urge democracies throughout the world to consider the creation of national endowments for journalism that are carefully designed to confront the impending collapse of investigative reporting.
[...]
Here is where our system of national endowments enters the argument. In contrast to current proposals, we do not rely on public or private do-gooders to dole out money to their favourite journalists. Each national endowment would subsidise investigations on a strict mathematical formula based on the number of citizens who actually read their reports on news sites.
– A national endowment for journalism guardian.co.uk 13 Feb 2009
There is weakness in the model of offering funding based on popular views. Attracting attention does not equal importance. Worthwhile investigations may cost more to conduct. And the value of invesitgative journalism is just from informing the public, but influencing public policy and keeping power in check.
And then, most obviously, there is only something to view after the investigation. So, in their model someone still has to put up the money and take the chance that the proceeds will get the hits.
There are weaknesses in the implementation that Ackerman and Ayres describe, but since there is public value in digging for news, there should be public funding for it. It is though, merely one of many solutions and part of the mix of answers for news in the future.