Yes and no. You can consider buying a newspaper a donation. Actually what you suggest already has been tried in various forms, the outcome being stuff like in

Yes and no. You can consider buying a newspaper a donation. Actually what you suggest already has been tried in various forms, the outcome being stuff like indymedia, but also others. The problem you face here is that having no ads in your news usually means having no money for: marketing, getting out your stuff. A lot of things are already know anyway somewhere, just that person isn't loud enough or nobody cares. lawyers, if you don't want to do just public relations then you will need lots of them. reportages, that often require a lot of preparation, going to other countries, hidden cameras, tons of other equipment, etc. fallback money in case something goes really bad. It's sad, but it feels a bit like if there were enough donating people for serious news then the world would already be better and require it way less. Also you saw the Wikileaks drama. I can be kinda rough.