At first I thought this was about some central licensing body regulating and awarding credentials to journalists, just like is done in professional endeavours l

At first I thought this was about some central licensing body regulating and awarding credentials to journalists, just like is done in professional endeavours like medicine, engineering, and law. I was internally debating the merits vs. the dangers (self-regulated or government controlled? Do we want official state-approved press?). Then I realized that it was purely about a distributor musing about paying content providers in the hopes they can influence it, at least ostensibly for "quality". I see nothing wrong with the idea. Money is our way of measuring value, and information certainly has value and Google has been making mint extracting the excess value from information for a long time, to the point that little actually leaks through to the end consumer. I thinks this move would increase the quality of news, but the consumer needs to understand that the product they are consuming is influenced by the media through which they consume it. Whoever pays the piper calls the tune, as they say.