My wife and I started watching "Lou Grant" on DVD the other night, and after we finished the first episode, Nicole asked me what seemed like an odd question.

<em>"Doesn't it make you feel sad?"</em>

She was referring to the fact that I had been a journalist for nearly 30 years before my career ended abruptly nearly three years ago. I said no, that I had come to terms with what had happened, but in the last couple of days, I have realized there actually was some<em> there</em> there, unlike with the city of Oakland.

I have been sad about the newspaper business, but not because my own career ended when it did. I really <em>have</em> come to terms with that. But what I'm having quite a few sad thoughts about is that it doesn't seem to be just my career that went away. I'm beginning to think that newspapers really are starting to die out.

I've been re-reading <a title="Late Edition" href="http://www.amazon.com/Late-Love-Story-Bob-Greene/dp/0312375301" target="_self">"Late Edition,"</a> a book on the subject by one of my favorite writers. Bob Greene was one of the top columnists in the country for more than 30 years, and he tells the story of his first job as a copy boy at the Columbus Citizen-Journal, a paper that died in 1985. One of the first and most fascinating facts that he points out is that in 19