Why YSK: good journalism has a lot of costs (and not one-time-only), in time if not in money, so if any "news" source isn't at least trying to get paid somehow*, then it indicates that the supply at zero price exceeds the demand (it is a "free good"), which means ~~one of two things~~:
Edit: After a lot of discussion and some more thought on my part, I am no longer sure that a single binary choice captures all the possibilities here. The concept of a "free good" is a standard one in economics, with essentially the definition I gave above, and it is still true that most journalism comes with significant costs (and not just in money). So, if there is no effort being made to recover that cost (e.g. by asking for charitable donations, or some other significant material contributions like volunteer work), then I don't see how that "journalism" can be legitimate.
The point I was trying to make is that, e.g., internet sites that claim to offer vast amounts of easy, "quality" information (and it is questionable what that even means), on a regular, ongoing basis, but ask absolutely nothing from anyone in return, are likely some kind of scam. Because, if that were actually true, then they would have no way of actually supporting themselves on a long-term basis. Some people don't care about long-term sustainability, of course, but they don't tend to stay around for very long.
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a lot of people like and use it but the publisher, or someone backing them, is still paying the substantial costs associated with investigating/researching, editing, and hosting it (and are arguably being quite charitable), or
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not many people find it useful or access it often, but it is still being offered/promoted by someone who has some other motive (not necessarily nefarious, but also not all that charitable).
If the latter, but they still publish timely coverage of "newsworthy" events, which would otherwise make a lot more people want to read it, then they ~~are likely~~ may be (edited) "tabloid"/"propaganda"/"yellow journalism"/"clickbait"/"listicle"/whatever term people are using today for "not a very credible news source".
* Even if that's through asking for charitable donations, though that unfortunately is often not very successful despite the fact that, one might argue, when you benefit and have the financial means to pay but don't, then that is unethical.
Also, note that the existence of barriers to unfettered use can be considered a kind of "price" (from the "buyer's" perspective at least), which is both annoying and can serve to limit the "quantity demanded", making it easier to keep the "quantity supplied" high enough to meet the demand.
I think you have completely forgotten about the average citizen journalist. In other words, if someone has a phone and they're in the right place at the right time, they can create a blog entry or short video and upload it to social media, and that might be 100% highly relevant news for which they have zero intent of making any money.
That's a very simple one-off example, but I think we can find countless examples of high quality blogs that provide us accurate and timely news on specific subjects, where the author has no intent to monetize.
If you would like to reframe your claim to involve indexing or aggregating, that might be interesting.
Your first example is a very fair point, I wasn't thinking about people who basically stumble into something important and decide to publish it. But unless something very odd is happening, that will not happen over and over again to the same person. More likely, it may happen to them once and then they'll decide they want to become a regular citizen journalist, as you say, and then they will need to do a lot of work (with associated costs) even if they aren't getting paid for it. Which would be another example of my first suggestion.
For the rest, I realize that there are plenty of examples where people provide accurate and timely information without charge (a lot of Lemmy is, and hopefully will continue to be, an example of that!). But those people are, for the most part, doing volunteer work, which is very valuable and healthy, but nevertheless is still work (that has costs).
I was not claiming that free goods, or free news in particular, "can't" be worthwhile. Just that it implies that someone is supplying so much that goes above and beyond what a lot of people are trying to get that there is no need to charge for it. That can be an example of something very charitable and wonderful, or it can be an example of someone trying to push something that most people (rightly or wrongly) think is not very useful.