Nowhere did I say it was bad if someone gets paid for an article. However, it is valuable to me as a reader to have that information. Pro authors have different levels of access and potentially different motivations. There's a reason that good journalistic ethics requires that a journalist disclose any remuneration they receive for writing a piece. Aside from that, metanews is a newsletter that exists in fandom, which historically (in Western fandom at least) has existed largely on a volunteer/not-for-profit basis, which IMO is a key aspect of the spirit of the whole endeavor, so I personally am a little disconcerted to follow a link from a fannish newsletter and find that it's to a paid site. It works okay if it's one I know, but again, if you're linking to The Daily Dot, I assume you're also linking to others.

If you just had, like, a list of sites you regularly check that are paid and include that at the beginning in your general notes, that might be an easy way to give readers a heads up?