A One-Stop Shop for Digital News

"An iTunes for news": That's a concept some people have latched onto as a possible way out of the mess newspapers have found themselves in. Now three veteran media executives are starting something that, if not quite the equivalent of Apple's online music store, borrows some of its features and throws in a couple of its own.

The venture is called Journalism Online, and the names behind it are Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery. Brill founded American Lawyer Media and Court TV, as well as the less successful Brill's Content; Crovitz was publisher of The Wall Street Journal when Rupert Murdoch bought it; and Hindery was CEO of TCI and AT&T broadband.

The company they're launching is essentially a centralized service that will connect publishers ready to charge for their content with readers willing to pay for it. According to the announcement:

Journalism Online will develop 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. The password-enabled payment system will be integrated into all of the member-publishers' websites, and the publishers will have sole discretion over which content to charge for, how much to charge, and the manner of charge.

A subscription that covers unlimited access to all members' content will probably run about $15 a month, reports The New York Times. Also: "No publishers have signed on as yet as clients, but several major newspaper and magazine publishers have been in active talks with Journalism Online about how such a system should work."