Ah; but what do I mean by "orphaned"?

An article that's been orphaned was slated for publication in a magazine or newspaper but was, for one reason or another, dropped from the schedule. In this case, the newspaper was caught in a space crunch, resulting in an article idea that was pitched and accepted in the March/April timeframe, due in early May, and set to run this week being killed, oh, the other day. I mean, no bad vibes to my editor, she fought for this story but couldn't find the space/money, and I know the newspaper biz is getting more erratic and spendthrift with every passing week, but damn. It's enough to make an arts writer consider other options, if they exist, really. How else could I expend my energies? Is it even worth it at this point to come up with concepts for long stories that pay considerably more than short ones when the likelihood exists that nothing with come of the finished product except posting the thing on a blog no-one reads? In the past 12 months I've had a bunch of copy "lost" or ignored or whatever, and it's starting to get really, really old. A magazine I work for at least posts reviews on its site when there's no space in the book - but when that happens, the writers in question don't get paid. Would it be better to broaden my pool of outlets and simply write a little for a lot of editors, instead of bunching pitches to 2-4 editors? Something to seriously ponder.