If what you're aiming for is proper journalism, then in the long term somebody is going to need to be paid for a full-time commitment to doing the required leg-word - voluntary work only takes you so far. But that then makes you a traditional media outlet, more-or-less, with a business model and such things. If what you're doing is opinion/analysis stuff based on existing sources then I don't know why you'd need to be paid for it.