While newspapers around the country are cutting pay and staff, there are those who argue that the future of the industry could be a non-profit model, funded by charitable foundations and reader donations, like NPR or PBS.This is a step in the right direction, but $1.75 million is a small drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money newspapers are losing right now. A new business model is needed, and I highly doubt there is enough foundation money out there to help make up for the drop in advertising and readership.

More investigative journalism is just what is needed right now. At a time when the government is throwing around billions of dollars in stimulus funding, somebody has to keep an eye on corruption and waste.

The Huffington Post, with 7 staff reporters, gets as many hits as the nation's highest selling newspaper

As you can see from the graph to the right, the Huffington Post, with only 7 staff reporters, gets about as much traffic ts as the USAToday website. And with this new fund for special investigative reporting, the increased amount of original content on the HuffPost could deliver even more visitors.