I guess I'm not sure what your argument is here. That 'elitism' and the 'professionalization' of journalism has somehow made it worse?
That I'll pass on journalism by Ivy League J-School oligarchic groupthink.
That the "let's get rich people to set up journalism trusts that helps keep democracy in the light as they rich people see it" is a little too neat for me. Maybe I'm too cynical. Maybe my politics are just too liberal to see the world-betterment-as-defined-by-rich-progressives plan as anything other than a secular religion. That's me. I don't think existential issues can be solved through perfect policy and attitudinal-appropriate bureaucracies. Progressives do. I think they're losing. They think they'll get there. We'll see.
You know what analytics - Google, Parsely, whatever, the good ones - tell us? That people click on crime coverage. They like it. They'll read it. They will even pay to read it. Daily crime stuff - things people almost unquestionably did, or car crashes that indisputably happened.
You know what a 26-year-old, relatively-entry-level crime reporter doesn't want to do? Cover much crime. Rather, they've internalized the "it's a broken system" thing - which, fine, in ways it is - and want to cover that brokenness, which requires expertise, for one thing, and time, for another. And then you have to figure out what to do between the massive takeouts. It's journalism as a term paper - often written like one.
And, yes, the nonprofit model can be good for that kind of journalism, for it snugly fits into the mission of a rich progressive who probably feels guilt about their station in life (tho no conviction to change personal circumstances!) and seeks to give back through funding the kind of society-changing journalism that needs time, money and the absence of annoying impediments like putting out a news product every day.
Look: You make some good points. I'm not going to defend early 1900s journalism as I understand it.
We just have different perspectives on some of this stuff.
