Wall Street Journal to charge for mobile news

The Wall Street Journal is poised to begin charging consumers as much as $2 a week to access its news coverage via mobile device. Speaking at a New York City investor conference Tuesday, Rupert Murdoch--CEO of the venerable news daily's parent firm News Corp.--said it will impose mobile fees within the next month or two, with additional details to be disclosed next week. Murdoch did say that subscribers to the Journal's print edition would only be charged $1 a week for mobile web access, with the $2 weekly fee applying to non-subscribers.

The Wall Street Journal is one of the few major U.S. newspapers requiring premium subscriptions for its online content--the publication currently boasts more than 1 million online subscribers. The Journal introduced a free mobile news application in February 2008, followed six months later by the WSJ.com Mobile Reader, a free app optimized for BlackBerry smartphones. The Journal's free iPhone app debuted in April 2009.

For more on the Journal's premium content plans:
- read this MSNBC.com article