Internet news site folds after a year

JEFFERSON CITY, MO — After nearly 12 months of slow but steady growth, USA Journal, “America’s Daily Newsmagazine,” on the Internet has shut down.

Jon E. Dougherty, editor of USA Journal Online, said his decision to close the site was a painful one, but “at this point, a necessary one nonetheless.”

Dougherty said that he worked alone on the Internet daily from offices in his home and at Learfield Communications here, where he also serves as an associate producer for a daily syndicated talk radio show called “The Derry Brownfield Show.” Dougherty also hosts a weekly radio newsmagazine, called USA Journal On the Air, which focuses on the stories and reporting of other Internet news dailies. He added that he often used “many contributions from some very bright writers” but that he was the sole webmaster for the webzine.

Dougherty said he will continue to publish his five-day-a-week op-ed column, and “I’ll keep up the pages for the radio show since surfers can link to the show via Talk America’s Internet audio link.”

Asked what triggered the decision to stop publishing, Dougherty said it was “a number of things, really.”

“Time was getting to be a problem,” he said, “as well as finances. The Internet magazine business is in its infancy, and getting advertisers and investors is tough because not many people trust the medium yet.”

Dougherty said some revenue had been generated on the site through the more
than 610,000 hits it has received from May 29 until August 18. “It just wasn’t sufficient,” he finally concluded. “To really earn, a site needs about that number of hits a day.”

“It’s sort of like an endcap display in a department store,” he explained. “The more customers which pass by the display, the higher number will buy the product.” He said that the overall shopping percentages of web surfers remains at “about 2-4 percent on the average,” but “obviously the more people who surf into your site, the more people who will see the advertiser’s message.”

Dougherty said that for now he is considering a return to free-lance writing, where he spent 16 years publishing “mostly small and trade magazine pieces.” But he didn’t rule out resurrecting the Journal.

“I want to see where I am here in a few weeks and then I’ll know more about what I’m going to do with it.”

Dougherty said he hated to disappoint readers who had made the Journal a daily read, and for that reason he hoped to get it back online again, “maybe by the end of the year. I just don’t know.”

Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily called Dougherty “a pioneer in Internet journalism.”

“USA Journal was a noble venture,” he said. “We haven’t heard the last of Jon Dougherty. His contributions will always be welcome at WorldNetDaily.”

WorldNetDaily, which was launched in May 1997, is believed to be the fastest-growing independent Internet news site, averaging more than a quarter million impressions or “hits” a day. It is sponsored by the non-profit Western Journalism Center, a group of investigative reporters committed to exposing waste, fraud, corruption and abuse in government, and is beginning to attract limited advertising support as well as tax-deductible contributions.