• Ars Technica, Thursday, April 16, 2009 11:30 AM

A new venture called Journalism Online believes that online news outlets need to start charging subscription fees for their content. The company, which is "backed by some heavy hitters," says Ars Technica's Nate Anderson, aims to be the one-stop subscription site for quality journalism on the Web. Can it save journalism?

"We have formed Journalism Online, because we think this is a special moment in time when there is an urgent need for a business model that allows quality journalism to be the beneficiary of the Internet's efficient delivery mechanism rather than its victim," said cofounder Steven Brill. "We believe we have developed a strategy and a set of services that will establish that model by restoring a stream of circulation revenue to supplement advertising revenue, while taking advantage of the savings to be gained from producing and delivering content electronically."

Circulation revenue will be managed by a single Web site that handles payments and authentication and sells monthly and yearly subscription packages to magazines and newspapers. The idea is to create a one-stop subscription portal that gives users instant access to multiple news outlets. Money would be allocated to publishers based on how popular their content is. Search engines like Google would be able show the headline and first paragraph of every Journalism Online article.

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