The New York Times appears to be flirting with the idea of applying for foundation grants to help underwrite the costs of journalism for sections of the newspaper. Full story from PaidContent.org here.

"We’ve begun to ask ourselves whether it would be possible to get the kind of support that NPR does from foundations for its journalism…[but they] haven’t reached any conclusions and we haven’t gone to any foundations," according to Craig Whitney, AME at the New York Times.

Perhaps we will be seeing fund-drive messages mid-story in the future: We will get you back to the article you have been reading in just a moment, but first if you have not yet contributed it only takes a second, call now.

It is too bad that the Times, which appears to be thinking so creatively about alternative revenue sources now with a billion dollar debt hanging over its head, never put that type of brain-power to work in an effort to get the print ads they sell to generate better results.