Will readers pay for online news?

So, the great charging-for-content experiment starts here. Six Johnston Press titles are trying new online models from today.

The Northumberland Gazette, Whitby Gazette and Southern Reporter are to start charging for content - £5 per reader for three months of complete web access. (That's in theory - in practice, you can still read content on the Whitby Gazette just fine, unless it they've decided it will apply only to new stories, which isn't clear).

More pointlessly controversially, the Carrick Gazette, Worksop Guardian and Ripley and Heanor News are abandoning the notion of online news entirely, simply redirecting readers back to the newspaper after a one-par summary of each story.

It's not just local papers - increasing numbers of trade magazines are considering some kind of barrier, with the Health Service Journal due to put up a subscription barrier to protect its print magazine subs on Friday. And the nationals - led by Rupert Murdoch, of course - are beavering away at some kind of paying solution.

It needs to be done, of course. How to make online journalism pay is the key challenge facing the industry at the moment.

But here's why it's taken so long - and why no one's all that keen. Just like trench fighting in the First World War, we're losing the war of attitition, so we need to charge. It may or may not work, if we all do it - but what's certain is that whoever goes over the top first is going to get shot.

Good luck guys, the future of the industry depends upon you. We'll be right behind you.