Three veteran US media executives teamed up on Tuesday and launched a company designed to help ailing US newspapers and other publications make money on the Web by charging readers for news.
Journalism Online intends to “quickly facilitate the ability of newspaper, magazine and online publishers to realize revenue from the digital distribution of the original journalism they produce,” its founders said in a statement.
The company is led by Steven Brill, the founder of Court TV, Gordon Crovitz, a former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and Leo Hindery, a former chief executive of AT&T Broadband.
The venture comes as newspapers across the US grapple with a steep plunge in print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.
Two newspapers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colorado, have shut down in recent weeks and several big newspaper groups have declared bankruptcy, including the Tribune Co, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and other dailies.
Brill said the company has already held talks with most major US newspaper and magazine publishers and they expressed “strong interest” in the venture.
“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,” he said.
“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,” he said.
Brill said he and his partners were convinced that readers “will continue to support journalists by paying a modest, fair price for original, independent, professional work distributed online.”
Among major US newspapers, only the Wall Street Journal currently charges readers of its Web site, although a number of other dailies, including the New York Times, have said they are considering introducing a similar system.
The founders of Journalism Online said it would be a “password-protected website with one easy-to-use account through which consumers will be able to purchase annual or monthly subscriptions, day passes, and single articles from multiple publishers.”
Journalism Online would provide annual or monthly subscriptions to consumers who want to pay one fee to access all of the content from member publishers. Revenue would be shared among publishers.
Journalism Online would also negotiate wholesale licensing and royalty fees with intermediaries such as search engines and other Web sites.
One of the most popular online news aggregators, Google News, has been the target of criticism from some US newspaper publishers for linking to their content without sharing advertising revenue.
Other newspaper owners have not complained, however, saying Google News is driving traffic to their Web sites that they would not otherwise receive.
“Journalism Online will enable news publishers to negotiate from a position of strength,” Brill said. “Consumers will benefit because they will have greater choice, and search engines and other intermediaries will benefit because they will have access to more journalism.”
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS