The other day in an email to a friend I referred to "the economic tsunami that seems headed for the U.S. newspaper industry."
Is that overstated? If you recently lost your job in a newsroom cutback, you probably don't think so.
But when I was traveling last week I saw something that surprised me.
The "Boxing Day tsunami" from the 2004 Great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was a horrible thing, leading to 300,000 deaths and staggering destruction.
Many of us watched the amateur videos that were quickly posted to the Internet, some of them shot on camera phones.
We saw buildings collapsing, people pulled into the sea, and far worse.
Yet in my stay on Ko Phuket, on the Andaman sea in Thailand, I didn't see defeat. I saw life going on, undoubtedly changed but nevertheless defined by optimism and growth. I saw new construction. I saw hotels full of happy tourists and restaurants full of diners.
And on a food stand sign on Ko Phi Phi I ran across a sign: "Thank you to the tsunami that enabled me to have this shop today."
It was a powerful reminder that in any great change, even one as horrible as the 2004 tsunami, there are going to be winners.
Which we be? That is likely to turn on how we respond. We can sit and bemoan the passing of the era of the great metropolitan newspaper or we can choose to look for ways to invent the future. I think journalism will be changed, but it's going to survive.