Indy media is susceptible to cave to the donors?

For, Harry Browne of the Dublin Institute of Technology "both nonprofit news and commercial news often find themselves constrained by the hidden agendas of their masters. Just as commercially supported journalists often find themselves dispatched to investigate the owners' hobbyhorses, nonprofit newsers are frequently assigned to 'chase after the idiosyncratic whims of funders.'"Source

This was a troubling line and I'd like to take a moment to respond. It is not the case that independent media, by and large, will alter their content, especially their journalistic ethics or beliefs, in order to gain funding. My argument has to to with the order of the institution and the funding. 

In mainstream media, the funding made the station/outlet/paper possible.  Independent media often start out with no money at all, they begin as side-jobs, hobbies etc. They blossom once they realize there is significant support for what they are doing, and they can then rely on donations from those supporters for their livelihood. 

Furthermore, a donor need not shift and change and bargain with indy outlets to get them to publish material that the donor wants. The breadth of indy media is incredibly large, and virtually any donor can simply give to whichever outlet suits him or her. It's cheaper, smarter and more realistic to do this than try and change an established institution. 

In this way content drives funding/donations. In mainstream media, funding drives content. 

This is not to say that Indy media is not responsive to their audiences (Actually in some important ways they are on the cutting edge of interacting with their audience). They will spice up their websites, their formatting, improve, develop, and compete with other indy sites with similar angles to be the best etc.