Me. I run http://startupnews.com.au despite making no money doing it (as the plaintive pleas for sponsorship and donations on the site show). The Perth startup community needs it, so I run it.

There's similar blogs for every small community, run by people who care about that community. Usually unfunded, and only covering stories of interest to that community.

> What the heck is a hobbyist journalist?

Shills and Kool-aid-drinking zealots mostly - they are the ones usually motivated enough to do 'journalism' for free. Don't expect any professionalism, depth or any form of investigative journalismbeyond tweet-storms.