Move to make free online news history

SAN FRANCISCO: Three media veterans plan to bundle the Internet content of newspapers and magazines into a subscription package that will test Web surfers' willingness to pay for material that has been given away for years.

The system won't be ready until the fall, but the plans were announced late on Tuesday because so many publishers are already clamoring to sign up, said Steven Brill, co-chief executive of the new venture, called Journalism Online.

"The interest in this came together a lot more quickly than we anticipated," said Brill, the founder of Court TV and American Lawyer magazine. "We are dancing as fast as we can now."