“For quality games media, I continue to believe that the best form of stability is dedicated reader bases to remove reliance on funds, and a hybrid of direct reader funding and advertisements. If people want to keep reading quality content from full time professionals, they need to support it or lose it. That’s never been more critical than now.”
The games media outlets that have survived, except for Gamespot and IGN, have just about all switched to this model. It seems to be the only way it survives.
You even see it here. People will post “quality journalism” and then it gets attacked because its nuanced and doesnt extrapolate into extreme claims.
People are so used to the rage-bait and bad journalism that its hard for actual reporting to break through. As well as it takes 1000x more effort to gather the evidence and story for quality reporting. Its bad, we need to start supporting journalists through gov subsidies and donations.