My thoughts too. The hard part, the money part is putting people on the ground, in Iraq, in Syria.

The thing about news outlets is the problem with a business model highly widespread around the internet right now: advertising. It's problematic, I feel, because as soon as the company decides your content doesn't suit their interests or they don't want to be associated with you, they'll cut your income. That model stops innovation and encourages sameness, uniformity and mediocrity. As Chomsky says, the NYT is interested in seeling a product, the product is privileged people, just like the people who are writing the newspapers, you know, top-level decision-making people in society. You have to sell a product to a market, and the market is, of course, advertisers (that is, other businesses). Whether it is television or newspapers, or whatever, they are selling audiences. http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Maybe that could change a little with the pay-for-model a0 proposed. Right now they charge $3,75 per month, which is more or less $45 per year. It's seems a reasonable price.