Sadly I find publicly funded news organizations (BBC,PBS) far more informative than private organizations (NBC,FOX). However, I suspect directly paying for news that is not primarily funded though advertising might be the best solution. Removing the costs of TV / printing paper and filling a 24 hour news cycle means far smaller organizations can still fill the need for real reporting.
The other option is something like "the daily show" where in depth news is just one type of content and you don't need to yammer on about every new case of H1N1 to fill an hour of news every single day.
PS: The reality is paying 10,000 or so journalists is just not that expensive a proposition and assuming the current system is the only way to fund them is probably missing the point.
I think you make a good point about the hour long format.
News seems like a case where the time constraint was beneficial, and the product has become less valuable (more noise) ever since that constraint was dropped by the 24 hour news networks.
When I was a kid, we watched the 10 o'clock news every night before bed. The first half hour was world news, the second half hour was local news, and it always wrapped up with some local human interest piece. Yeah, it was a staid format, but it also meant the signal to noise ratio was high, because you really only had time to say what was actually important/informative.
With 24 hour news, we basically have the same information, but it's diluted by 23 hours of commentary on "what might happen" and "what's your view on what is happening". Why do we want to listen to people speculate all day? If the speculation was at least honest and intelligent, you might be able to learn from it, but I'm fairly sure you could find a higher level of discourse in your local high school debate class.
The other option is something like "the daily show" where in depth news is just one type of content and you don't need to yammer on about every new case of H1N1 to fill an hour of news every single day.
PS: The reality is paying 10,000 or so journalists is just not that expensive a proposition and assuming the current system is the only way to fund them is probably missing the point.