[Mirioron]

On the other hand, there are too many activist journalists. People whose main goal is not to report the news but to push a political or social agenda. I particularly despise the ones that do smear attacks. I've been burned too many times by trusting these "journalists" that if a stranger tells me they're a journalist then I trust them less than I did before knowing that.

The risk with the government paying the media is that the media stops being independent from the government. Some of that media is basically going to be propaganda for the government that's funded by taxpayers. But, if journalists were paid by taxes then perhaps we would get less clickbait. I'm not sure how it would affect activist journalism though. I'm afraid it might even increase it.