Will internet kill news biz or revive it?

Today's courant.com, the web edition The Hartford (Conn.) Courant, has an encouraging story about career prospects for journalism students. Newspapers may be in bad shape financially, says an article by staff writer Joann Klimkiewicz, but j-schools are gearing up to prepare students for tomorrow's ways -- whatever they may be -- of getting news in the hands of readers.

"Newspapering, industry folks sigh, is a dying tradition," says Klimkiewicz. And what's killing it, according to conventional wisdom? Why, the Internet.

But, no, wait a minute, says Klimkiewicz: "Not just yet." She quotes several j-school deans and professors who say "applications to their programs are steady, and in some cases climbing."

Quoted prominently in the story is Jamie DeLoma, editor of the school paper at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University, who said "in a roundabout way, I think the Internet is what's going to save print journalism, because it gives print the one thing it lacks. That's immediacy."

[We saw what immediacy means in newswriting class this morning. We first noticed the report of Osama bin Ladin's latest audiotape on The Chicago Tribune's website. That's print. In five or 10 minutes we chased the story to al Jazeera and CNN, and back to an updated story on The Trib. TV, more TV and the newspaper. And all of it, of course, updated minute by minute on the Internet.]

Klimkiewicz said declining newspaper circulation is a real problem, and so are staff layoffs across the country. She said j-schools don't minimize the problems, but they're still upbeat:

Bottom line, journalism deans and professors tell their students: There will always be jobs for the talented. And there will always be an appetite for news, a need for hard-nosed investigations and impassioned storytelling. It's just a question of how people will prefer to get that information that will change.

And so the tack many programs are taking is to get their students proficient across all media. Good journalism is good journalism, no matter the vehicle.

She quotes an official at Quinnipiac, who wants students to learn broad skills they can adapt to the changing demands of different media platforms like print, broadcast or the Internet.

"The most important thing we can teach our students is to be platform-agnostic," says Rich Hanley, graduate program director for Quinniapic's school of communications. "The more you can learn, the more you can market yourself.

"A story is a story. At heart, you're still a reporter," Hanley says. "Despite the changes in distribution mechanisms, the skills of a reporter are timeless: Report the facts, report the information objectively, and write clearly."

Good advice, I'd say.

The Hartford Courant, by the way, has been through a change in distribution mechanisms or two. Its first edition hit the streets Oct. 29, 1764, and one of its innovations was publication of Noah Webster's Blue Back Speller.