I'm not a big fan of microtransactions unless everybody pretty much used the same service. Otherwise there's too much mental overhead.

Also, I'd pay for a service that got me free access to a dozen original news providers (I don't want a dozen copies of the wire story) with different points of view, I'd pay for that.

But that's not the landscape right now.

One thing that might work is really lean organizations surviving on donations for original reporting. I know Michael Yon made that work in Iraq, and there were a bunch of people trying to do that (somewhat successfully, I believe) on youtube before the ad money dried up.