From an investment perspective, I just don't see how the ROI is there for modern digital media companies to incentivize the 'slow pace' of journalism like with

From an investment perspective, I just don't see how the ROI is there for modern digital media companies to incentivize the 'slow pace' of journalism like with 'traditional' media. That's not to say investigative journalism doesn't exist anymore, but news companies are much more cognizant about 'production metrics' so longer, time-consuming pieces are much less frequent. You said it well: investors want their dollars. It's like manufacturing: more sales = more dollars. More news = more revenue. The barriers to entry (and republishing) are also a lot lower now. Why sink a bunch of time and resources into a single piece, when another news company could just come along and say "Thanks for doing the work for us!" and republish it for ad revenue with minor edits. Everyone is rushing to be first, which typically results in a first publisher with nearly instant fast-followers. Plus, when news is ubiquitous and free, users have tons of choices to read the story from, so there is always an alternative around the corner.