If people don’t want to pay, then they don’t actually value the news. I pay for publications that I trust and want to continue reading.
The key is finding a niche where the news organization can produce quality reporting that people actually value. “Free News” is just another ad business.
Significantly fewer people would pay for objective reporting than for, say, Fox News.
Partly because Fox News would be much cheaper.
Do you think that the desire to pay for a thing is the only indicator of whether that thing is valued? If not, what do you mean by "[people] don't actually value the news"?