AFAIK, the profit center for Internet news is the same as the paper edition: ads.  Subscription and newsstand sales only cover the costs printing and distribution of the paper edition.  

For the last decade, or so, newspapers have been profitable, in some cases tremendously so.  Now the ground has shifted and the income stream is coming back down to trend, or below.  Thus the profits are shrinking and people, like Murdoch, who bought based on insane projected future revenue are taking it in the shorts.

Trying to sell internet subscriptions is trying to iterate the print model ... and it isn't going to work.