Should you be taxed to subsidize 'The New York Times'?
 

*Source: The Iconoclast Blog (News.com) (http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9787518-38.html)*
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The stiff winds of Internet competition have already swept through countless businesses, including travel agents, car dealers, wine retailers and stock brokers.

Some have adapted. Some have perished. I have a friend who, to his chagrin, became a licensed stockbroker in Pennsylvania just as E*Trade and other Internet brokerages were becoming popular. And does anyone even remember travel agents anymore?

Now newspapers are facing a hurricane-strength competitive gale, and they, understandably, don't like it one bit. A recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review (http://www.cjr.org/feature/the_uncle...n.php?page=all) titled "The Uncle Sam Solution" suggests everything from ownership tax incentives and R&D subsidies for the development of electronic paper--to a straightforward redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to newspaper owners and employees.

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