Twisting in the wind: The Boston Globe and every other newspaper

For most of my life, I've been attached to a newspaper. With little exception, ever since high school (when I was the editor of The Baysider in the New York City borough of Queens), I've written or edited for a newspaper.

As I watch the negotiations over the life and death The Boston Globe -- one of America's most storied newspapers (and one for which I write a weekly consumer column) -- I think about all the dreams that have been crushed in the wonderful business that journalism was... and hopefully can become again.

Many of the people who toil in newsrooms do it because they feel a calling. Journalism for us has never just been about having a job, but about righting wrongs and getting satisfaction from providing people with a service that could help them in their lives.