Brussels Sprouts Media?

I believe the most important strength of “brussels sprouts” media is that it is an outlet that is way less dependent upon other media sources. In fact, it is a sort of anti-media outlet, and so when one major news source (CNN, Fox, the NY Times, etc.) reports on a story, they are less likely to piggy back on what that source has already said, or in the example of the David Carr article, not talk about the source at all. However, its main disadvantage is that because it is such a grass-rooted campaign, media consumers might find the source to be less credible simply because it is an unknown source. This is why jump-starting a brussels sprouts media outlet is so risky: if you have no history of hard-hitting independent journalism, then why should people want to listen to what you have to say?
I believe David Carr did a pretty good job of covering this news trend without too much bias, although he only mentioned one of these websites (TexasTribune.org). It would have been interesting to see if more of these non-profit journalism sites are on the rise. After all: one website doesn’t necessarily indicate a trend. Also, I want to know if the website has accepted any donations from politicians or groups who are affected by Texas politicians, because this could completely influence what the writers would write about Texas law-making. Is there any sort of firewall to separate the writers’ viewpoints from the sources of donations that they are receiving?
To Carr’s credit, he did play ball interviewing with the site’s contributers, who told him that starting a new news source was less risky than staying at a newspaper. The in-your-face irony is that this Carr writes for the New York Times.