Think Progress I know is a nonprofit backed by the Center for American Progress, hence why they are free access. Ditto with NPR or other nonprofit media. Maybe it's time that news orgs should be nonprofits instead of commercial enterprises.

I don't mean literally steal, though. Just a sleazy repackaging.

Raw Story will write an extremely sensationalist, out-of-context, misquoting headline and opening paragraph and then get on with the story everybody would have been better served reading straight from the AP.

Think Progress isn't a news source. It's a talking points distribution platform. Yes, I realize that's what Think Progress readers say about mainstream sources. That's one of the talking points.

News providers that evolved from old school print media generally still want you to actually pay them to give you their product.

for websites to be free. But in any time, the news services get the money where the readers are, and in modern times it's mostly digital.

digital subscription to the NYT. It does get frustrating trying to read my local LA Times and Pasadena Star News. I can't subscribe to all of them.