What you're describing is a lot like NPR. Which was great, until the people in power decided to pull that funding.

The problem with the government is it doesn't like oversight. So in this situation, you need to devise a scheme where the government is forced to pay something, but also has no control over that money. Which is a hard problem.

I don't know that I would describe NPR as "great". One specific example that sticks in my mind was a story they did about firearms. The host kept using the word "automatic". Knowing something about firearms, it was apparent to me that it was being used as shorthand for "not a revolver", but the host was implying that it meant "machine gun". Revolvers are so uncommon that there's really not any useful value being passed in attaching the word "automatic" when describing a gun unless you're describing something that is subject to the NFA.

Or, more recently, there was a deep dive into the Chicago parking meter deal. I don't think anyone needs convincing that it was a bad deal, but one thing that they said was that the new owners have "already received back all the money they paid out". Okay, but please expand. This was for an economics show, so is the recovery just a gross dollar comparison (e.g. they've received back more than $1.1B), is it inflation adjusted, does it exceed the time value of the money that was given to the Daley administration? It wouldn't have taken but another 30 seconds to make it clear, but by not saying I'm 99% certain they were focusing on gross dollar comparison and ignoring the value of 2008 dollars vs. 2025 dollars. In turn, that sounds like it's playing towards the audience members that don't understand why the total of payments for their mortgage is so much more than the purchase price of the house.