When the 'Times' and the 'Journal' Destroy Each Other, We'll Still Be Here, Just Chillin'!

I am really, really pre-enjoying the coming chapter of the battle-saga of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times-way too much. I love that there are two rich men, Arthur Sulzberger and Rupert Murdoch, both delightful and wacky in their own ways, who have staked out both an ideology and a business practice and now they are going to get all Greco-Roman about it-and will drag their deputies into it, too. (New Times spokesbot (not doing too well so far!) Big Bob Christie v. Robert Thomson (mean as can be!).) So this is the perfect curtain raiser for the coming bloodbath. Here’s Thomson’s latest: “My advice to New York Times readers is cancel your subscription, read it on the Web for free and buy The Journal.” Of course he is saying this because of the feature (or flaw! Maybe “fatal” “flaw”?) of the Journal, which is that “virtually nothing” of their new New York section will be available online without a payment. This is going to be a great spring, with the sniping and the stabbing and the poaching and the harsh words and the models of commerce falling apart like wet newsprint!