The news about new digital-news sites? It's tough going.

Take a few accomplished journalists, add some venture capital, mix with the Internet -- and, voila!, you had the ingredients for a revolution in journalism and business.Or so journalists suggested when a wave of news start-ups fronted by "brand-name" reporters crested last year. "We are in a time very similar to the early 1980s, when big cities were finally wired for cable," wrote the New York Times's media columnist, the late David Carr, in one of the typical assessments last year. "What follow...