[bondolo]

It is working in my community. http://www.berkeleyside.com/ has run a (very modest) profit for the last two years and continued to expand. Their focus is the greater Berkeley area; a population of about 350,000. It is a more educated and well-off population than national averages. The revenue split is 65-35% between supporters and advertising. They've also recently done a direct public offering of stock allowing for $800K in investment.

Local news, supported locally is possible.

[eropple]

Berkeley is profoundly out of the norm for American communities. Berkeley has money. Other places don't. This problem is not solved by the way things work where the money flows freely.

Berkeley has 350,000 people in it. It's also eighteen square miles in size. The entire Portland-South Portland-Biddeford MSA in Maine is about half a million people and it's two thousand square miles in size. And it certainly wouldn't in my hometown in the Lakes Region of Maine, with a population across four towns in the school district of about 15,000 people across a little under two hundred square miles.

The problem devolves to income inequality and the unsustainable nature of community-driven efforts because of it--nobody can afford it!