"I’ll use this space to note that, while sponsorship revenue is key to our survival, we remain hesitant to test the waters of sponsored content for the Monitor. Many – most? – of our colleagues around the news publication world have settled on this concept as a way to quickly boost revenue in an ecosystem starved for it. But we worry about the impact it would have on our credibility.
"That said, we’ve experimented with a version of what the Voice of San Diego calls “Partner Voices,” a space for sponsored content from area nonprofits. To make this work – read: to keep it off the Monitor‘s page – we figured we’d post it on the CoTMF website. Thus far, we’ve found little interest, but we’re happy to continue to entertain the idea."[2]
[1] http://www.austinmonitor.com
[2] http://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2016/03/publishers-note...
However, you could argue that this lack of traction was due to the climate of the users and what they were interested in at the time, they also (if I remember correctly) were actively paying local "reporters" who had a specific local beat.
clatl.com
atlanta.eater.com
atlanta.curbed.com
In addition to these, I think a small monthly paper devoted solely to investigative journalism in a particular city or town would generate enough paying subscribers to be viable, but I could be wrong.