Columnists as we knew them gone?

I'm a day late with this -- golf yesterday -- but Stephen Rodrick has an interesting take on the state of newspaper columnists in a column on slate.com Tuesday. There's a sentence that places the blame squarely on ESPN, but it does go beyond that. Part of me completely agrees with him on the endangered species status of "traditional" newspaper columnists; unfortunately, I can't shake the concern that this simply makes me -- and him -- a dinosaur in a rapidly evolving media world.