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"I'd also like a Beaver Press, please," I told the cashier at the Shell station. He was ringing up my coffee and gum, and I wanted to make sure it got added to my tab.

 The fact that I needed a Beaver Press is one of those things that just makes Mr. Rufus J. So-and-So shake his head. But I can't help myself — I have always had a thing for small town newspapers. Have to get one wherever I stop. I've been through Beaver, Utah several times, and just like the other night, I always pick up a copy of The Beaver Press.

"New issue doesn't come out until tomorrow, so everything in it is old," the cashier told me. "But the Beaver County Times over there just came out. Plus, it's free."

"Oh, that's OK," I said. "I don't mind paying for a Beaver Press."

"The Times is actually a better paper," said the local woman standing behind me.

"And it's free," the cashier reiterated.

I glanced at The Times, and nodded to acknowledge how much I appreciated their good advice. Then I placed my quarters on the counter and said, "Thank you, but I still want a Beaver Press."

When we got back on the road, Rufus noted that the weekly town crier must be doing something right — In an age where newspapers are on a death watch, I paid good money for one when a better alternative was free. It got me to thinking. There has to be a lesson in this story fort he San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Boston Globe and countless other titans of the industry counting their last breaths.Maybe the Internet isn't as much of a threat to the printed page as previously thought. The problem isn't necessarily that our info-saturated society expects news on demand, or that competing electronic media lure audience by covering what's popular over what's newsworthy. The problem could be in something simple like a name. What if the whole industry followed the Beaver Press' lead? I should make this suggestion in a letter to Hearst offering my services as a marketer: The crisis could be solved if newspapers would just change their names to something that will snatch our attention.