Adapting To A Market Change Is Not The Same As Killing People

from the equivalencies dept

What is it with people trying to equate changing markets to terrorism these days? First we had Andrew Keen trying to equate file sharing to the September 11th hijackers, and now Adam Thierer points us to Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post comparing Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell to a domestic terrorist from 1910 who set a bomb at the LA Times building, killing 21 employees. On what basis does Meyerson make this comparison? Because Zell recognizes that the traditional way the newspaper business worked isn't cutting it any more, and he's out to make changes. Some of those changes do involve cuts -- but if that's what it takes to survive (and thrive), then that's hardly the same as killing people. If Zell simply stays the course, and pretends that the old newspaper business model isn't going away, then he runs a much bigger risk: having the entire Tribune Co. fail. I would think that having him make some cuts here and there to adjust would be better than shutting down the whole damn thing -- and both of those scenarios are light-years better/different than killing people.

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