He was posting on True/Slant, a Web site that is mapping a new relationship between journalists, readers and advertisers. In fact, O'Brien has already contacted such aerospace companies as Boeing and Lockheed Martin to sponsor his work at another site, and plans to do so for True/Slant.

If he had done that at CNN, says O'Brien, "I'd be fired, are you kidding?"

Lewis Dvorkin, founder of the site, which officially launches today after a trial run, makes no apologies for throwing out the old model. "It's tailored for the entrepreneurial journalist," he says. "We're enabling and empowering journalists to develop their own brand."

Dvorkin is a media veteran who has worked for the New York Times, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, AOL and TMZ.com. He is backed by $3 million in funding from Forbes Media and Fuse Capital. True/Slant has 100 contributors, and unlike, say, the Huffington Post, where most writers blog for free, everyone is compensated in some form.