If you can buy bitconi anonymous, without any id, than its good and might be worth paying more than exchange fees. If ID is required, I prefere to stay with exchanges, as prices there will be considerably cheaper than in the newstands for sure.
But this may be a great service for attracting everyday people, who are the ones that Bitcoin needs to take off.
And what will they do with the bitcoin? The article does not say the newstands will accept bitcoin as payments for their products. So if they only sell, not accept, then i dont see the point. Its like saying, buy bitcoins from as for your fiat for extra charge, but we are not interested in accepting bitcoins, as they have no use for us.