Persnickety

And I thought pharmacies had problems ... In yesterday's New York Times Michael Kinsley had an article ("You Can't Sell News by the Slice," Tue, Feb 10, 2009) detailing the woes that prevail amongst the newspaper crowd. Seems they lose money on every paper due to paper and ink costs (not to mention employment, rents, health care, etc), and advertising dollars, normally their sweet spot, are spiraling down the toilet. In a previous issue, Walter Isaacson , former managing editor of Time, had advocated " micropayments " on the Web issues of newspapers, allowing a paper to accrue a nickle or dime for a "click" on an article. Kinsley says even that income wouldn't amount to enough to save the papers. Seems they are dinosaurs awaiting extinction where a few will inevitably survive as evolved journalistic forms on the Web. So why does this concern me? It just strikes me as being parallel to what pharmacy went through a few decades ago, when it allowe...