Back when the Drudge Report was a relatively new concept, and media watchdog groups were mostly confined to zines and the occasional Angelfire-hosted website, it seemed a novel idea to have a group of young professionals work entirely on the Internet, fact-checking the mainstream media against possible bias.

Now, at least 8 years later, the zeitgeist has come and gone. Well, not gone, exactly. Watchdog groups are still found mostly on the web, and Huffington Post was accredited with more political coverage this election cycle than any other organization in previous years.

But the thrill, the novelty, and the sheer naivety in thinking that these websites can survive and flourish simply because they are not print journalism but "new media" is increasingly harder to swallow. And during a time where gossip and snark rule most of the sites covering media, is it profitable to be an earnest blogger?

“These are some of the big questions about the future of the business,” said Robert H. Giles, curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Nonprofit news online “has to be explored and experimented with, but it has to overcome the hurdle of proving it can support a big news staff. Even the most well-funded of these sites are a far cry in resources from a city newspaper.”

Not only that, but the most obvious source of funding for these websites is not ad revenue, but donations from wealthy benafactors. Which of course, raises a problem if the guy paying for your website is Ron Burkle, and you happen to want to expose a story about the Clintons.

So for now, the desk jockeys who blog the truth in their spare time are still in a pretty good position. But if you are able to snag one of these legendary "paying" blogger gigs, the average rate for one Minnesota nonprofit watchdog site is a sweet $50k-60k for full time writers and editors. But it's doubtful you'll get health insurance under that plan, and living off the computer junky diet of Cheetos and Red Bull isn't the healthiest lifestyle on the planet.

But still, it sure beats being an intern for a newspaper for two years, only to find out they are folding before they can hire you full time.