John Gruber at Daring Fireball points out that his website is not free. It is free to read the website, but he charges advertisers and sponsors to be associated with the site. So the question is not whether to charge, but who.
This is something the traditional news media has had a hard time figuring out. Traditionally, the newspapers would charge both the advertiser and the reader -- although there are also a number of newspapers which are free to the reader and completely supported by the advertisers, such as the Chicago Reader. Many traditional publications have struggled to make their online presence profitable and some are probably getting further from the black. Case in point, Financial Times editor, Lionel Barber, predicts "that 'almost all' new organizations will be charging for online content within a year." Again, Gruber has an interesting exposition concerning this pricing model of publishing online. It is like this guy does this for a living. Oh wait...
In any event, it will take time to persuade users to pay for something as massless as news online. At least with a physical newspaper the user feels they receive something of inherent worth -- it has a physical presence, a physical weight. Online news just does not have the gravity, in many ways.
