MY EXTREMELY FRACTURED TAKE ON...
NEWSPAPERS VS. THE INTERNET!!!

There's been quite the raging debate over the last few months about the welfare of newspapers in this age where you can get all of your information online. I'm sure that newspaper publishers everywhere are doing their best to try and make sure that their paper stays significant, relevant, and timely in today's market. Sure, newspapers have faced competition before, what with the immediacy of television and radio, and that competition has only increased, what with the 24-hour news channels out there.

Then, along came computers, and now it's possible to find anything about anyone or anything you want, and the power is right there in your fingertips. All of a sudden, newspapers are being seen by some as "old-style", a "relic", an "artifact" of a long bygone age. As such, it is important for publishers everywhere to use NEW TACTICS to get the MOST out of their employees; some are resorting to extreme measures. Indeed, tough times need tough people, after all.

The leader of the gang at "huckleberries online", a division of the Spokesman-Review newspaper, knows all too well how tough things are getting out there. Dave Oliviera is fast finding out that newspaper employees are encouraged to be ever-vigilant, and try to "scoop" everyone and everything, no matter how important (or not).

In closing...whenever people smile like that at ME...I get mighty suspicious!