The only time people have ever paid for news before the Internet are newspapers and trade periodicals. When radio and TV were invented, people weren't paying f

The only time people have ever paid for news before the Internet are newspapers and trade periodicals. When radio and TV were invented, people weren't paying for news from those outlets. There was some notion of public service regarding TV and radio broadcasting that kept things more "civil" for a while, but tended to erode over time. So you could break up the media conglomerates, but it isn't going to make people pay directly for news and unless you want government-funded news, that would be the only thing that could prevent the advertiser hold over news, which is responsible for the dynamic of today more than anything else. The majority of people don't want pure news or information as a whole though, because most people aren't rich. The life of non-rich people is more stressful and people in that class will always tend to seek things with narratives and emotional resonance over critical-thinking-skill-needing information when they aren't working or otherwise trying to survive.