Salesmen making death threats? What cutthroat industry is this? The newspaper business. More specifically, the free newspaper business in Cleveland. The history runs like this. There were two papers in the town, Free Times and Cleveland Scene. They don't seem to get along - I recall a front page article in Scene depicting the Free Times logo in flames. Both papers were owned by media companies, and said companies also had papers in LA. The company behind Free Times shuttered it in exchange for the company behind Scene closing it's LA paper. But now the Free Times has come back, and the gloves have come off. In the article above, the Free Times editor mentions being challenged to a fistfight by a Scene editor. Scene ran this rambling diatribe when the Free Times rose from the dead. Now two salespeople are accused of making death (and other) threats. I hear Baghdad has dozens of papers running without so much trouble. Can't we aspire to that level?