Which is a sadder sign of a company's demise: Requiring that all of its employees take at least a 7 percent temporary pay cut or closing its office cafeteria and saying it can no longer afford to even buy plastic utensils people can use for their lunches? Both have happened at my company the past two weeks, so take your pick.
An old friend a few years ago founded her own citizen journalism Web site that has an admirable mix of residents from our hometown writing about local politics and Pakistani 20-somethings writing about the latest crisis in their country. I saw her last at a friend's wedding in the fall. Her father, a successful businessman and remarkably good columnist for the site, was also there and we talked for a several minutes. He said it was interesting how his daughter and I had both entered the news business. I replied how I was on the dying end of it -- newspapers -- and she was on the newly born end -- Web publications. He then said, "Well, which one hurts more, dying or being born, because they both hurt like hell?"
Dying definitely hurts more because there's no hope or excitement of what's to come. It's already passed. You see it everyone's eyes, everyday.
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