Three quotes to chew on, one from soon-to-be Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff:

You can’t put this too starkly: the news as a pastime, as a form of media, is vaudeville. The news business — our crowd of overexcited people narrating events as they happen — is going out of business.

This from a guy called Jason Steen, who gets in because he makes a good point and my RSS reader caught him:

There is no clash between quality journalism and profit-based business.

News organizations in America have always been profit-based businesses, and their ability to properly respond to change and innovate will allow them to continue delivering quality journalism.

The scarier question you failed to address, however, is “what if the reason for the decline in quality journalism isn’t advertising money and subscribers, but rather, a lack of demand?”

(BTW, I’m with Steen on that last point. For years editors have been selling the sports pages but telling themselves people bought the leader columns. What we are experiencing is – lovely word – unbundling.)

So, ushering in a new year full of hopeful journalism students, do I feel guilty taking their cash? No, journalism removed any semblance of conscience years ago because as Mark Potts says:

The skills that you use every day to commit journalism have uses you can barely imagine.

Making a career in journalism is risky but exciting, and if you don’t want to take a chance in life, book a place at actuarial college.