Like others I think a well done micro-pavement or bundle of payments would be nice. One thing I think that is missing from the discussion is metrics. If you do

Like others I think a well done micro-pavement or bundle of payments would be nice. One thing I think that is missing from the discussion is metrics. If you do a nice job building the site, and let users give an indication whether they want to see more or less coverage on the topic, you can offer this metrics data back to the news outlets, which can give them far better direction than simply looking at website clicks (which encourages click-bait). This, along with a slice of micro-payments would be valuable to them.