I don't see a solution to the subscription vs micropayment problem, but I wonder if we can solve three problems with one solution. We have a problem where "who

I don't see a solution to the subscription vs micropayment problem, but I wonder if we can solve three problems with one solution. We have a problem where "who is a journalist?" is not defined. We have another problem that the advertising model of paying for journalism isn't going to work (as TFA points out), and readers need to start paying for their news. We have another problem that bad actors in our society are paying for misinformation to be spread in order to warp people's political perceptions. So... can we: Define a journalist as someone who makes their entire living from selling articles that they write to their readers (also applies to videos/podcasts/radio/etc). And by extension, a "news organisation" is one that sells news articles to its readers (and pays journalists to write them). Define a difference between "news" - articles that readers pay for, and "fake news" - articles that are paid for by a sponsor organisation. Organisations that don't charge their readers are still able to publish whatever they like. But they're not considered "news" organisations. The credibility that goes with printing actual paper moves to selling the stories, not the adverts. Citing or quoting an article that isn't paid for results in a "but that's not news, it's promotional bullshit" - if someone is paying to have this published, then clearly they have a reason for that, and that reason is probably not because it's the truth (otherwise they wouldn't need to pay to publish it). Forcing news organisations to make their readers and not their advertisers or owners their primary customer would definitely improve the quality of news.