Andrew Sullivan announces shift to independent, reader-funded blog | Poynter. - 0 views
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Tom McHale on 03 Jan 13"After six years of affiliating his popular blog with major media companies Time, The Atlantic and most recently the Daily Beast, Andrew Sullivan announced he's returning to independence. As of Feb. 1, the blog will live at andrewsullivan.com without any ads, sponsors or investment backing. Just Sullivan and a couple of colleagues blogging - and hopefully, readers paying. Sullivan is asking for $19.99 a year to subscribe ("around a nickel a day"). Sullivan calls it "the purest, simplest model for online journalism: you, us, and a meter. Period. No corporate ownership, no advertising demands, no pressure for pageviews … just a concept designed to make your reading experience as good as possible, and to lead us not into temptation." The metered model, to be administered by TinyPass, allows a yet-unspecified number of free reads per month, with exemptions for any visitor following a link from another blog. "No blogger or writer need ever worry that a link to us will push their readers into a paywall," Sullivan writes. He hopes this will pave the way for other writers:"