Columbia Journalism Review :: The most distinctive thing about Journal Register Company, or JRC, at this point, rhetoric aside, is its business model: It gives away online for free what it charges for in print. Digital subscriptions—paywalls—are not part of the mix. Its online business relies on digital ads pretty much entirely. Whether the free online news model succeeds financially is one thing, and, put it this way, bankruptcy is never a good sign. The free model, however, also carries with it real implications for the kind of journalism that it can support.
A report by Dean Starkman, www.cjr.org
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