Wayne Madsen, an investigative reporter who is embraced by many on the left, is soon to make a major change to his popular Web site, Wayne Madsen Report. Big Head DC has learned that he will begin charging visitors to read his full scoops, such as his recent revelations that Dick Cheney may have used the services of Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

“It’s been tough running the site on contributions while having the MSM grab stories off of it, most of the time without attribution or credit,” Madsen tells us. ”Although there are a few MSM outlets who do give credit — I should mention Richard Johnson’s column in the New York Post as one that has given credit, the radio shows of Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes, Alex Jones, and Mike Malloy, and there are others, many of them foreign outlets.”

However, the vast majority of news outlets that regularly steal Madsen’s news are giving him zero credit. 

Some outlets, including Radar Online in recent days, have even taken swipes at Madsen, calling him lonely and backwards. Madsen believes that Radar editors likely dislike his reporting because he believes Radar ”is obviously linked to the right-wing and the neo-cons.” He says that Radar ”started partly with seed money from Mort Zuckerman, one of Bush’s toadies in the MSM.”

As for Wayne Madsen Report, the free site concept as a business model is just not working, according to the longtime reporter. “The site will have to transition to a pay-for-view site with a nominal monthly or yearly fee,” Madsen tells BHDC. ”There will still be free content and, of course, the teasers for articles will be available at no charge.”
 
Concludes Madsen: “It is not really fair that those who contribute most generously to keep us up and running are essentially helping to subsidize the corporate media.”