[hylaride]

There's a danger in "We need to do something, this is something, therefore we should do it".

Government subsidies flow to those who know the system. If what you want is journalists being paid by those people who know the system (probably postmedia, rogers, and bell), then this may be the solution you're looking for. However, it'll likely make it even harder for different viewpoints to compete, not only against big companies alone, but ones that get subsidies.

In the UK there's some ground-up work being done with some local newspapers becoming charities ( https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/mar/15/glimmer-of-hop... ). This, plus some very specific tax advantages, could provide news viewpoints of all stripes and not be beholden to funding conditions that may or may not make sense for the news source. It's just one example, but it's not tied to funding that can be easily manipulated by governments of the day. Subsidized organizations also often tend to get lazy.