I certainly didn’t get into newspapers to get rich, and I have not, but early on, I learned that if I picked employers carefully, and made sure they had Guild contracts, I could make an adequate living in a business that by and large has never paid decent wages to rank-and-file news workers.

I’m one of the lucky ones: I still have my job. Like many other survivors, I’m making less money than I did last year or the year before, and I’m in danger of falling out of the middle class.

I’m near retirement, so I’m not looking for a new occupation.

But if I was younger, I would not for a minute consider staying in journalism. Simply put, I don’t believe that whatever replaces newspaper journalism, even if it includes downsized newspaper journalism, will allow people like me to make a decent living.

Real writers or journalists may love the craft enough to do it for free or for very little, but we’re not all real writers or journalists.

I wouldn’t do this stuff for free, or for peanuts, any more than a plumber or carpenter or mason would.

Corporate America (that is to say, the only America that matters now) does not value journalism anymore, folks. In the new paradigm, journalist equals blogger equals freelancer equals hobbyist. Is that bad for America? Certainly. But most of us need to focus on being able to eat regularly and pay the rent or mortgage.

Do not inflate life vests until outside the aircraft.

bloggers vs journalists == “Bloggers aren’t journalists, and should be ignored.” Over. Dead, gone, buried. Bloggers are part of every major news organization now, some hired into newsrooms specifically to blog (e.g., Brian Stelter).

bloggers vs journalists == Bloggers can take the place of traditional journalism one-for-one.” Sorry folks, this one is still in your court. I have yet to see where the high-impact investigative reporting is going to come from. I have yet to see who are going to take the place of reporters getting in harm’s way to tell us what’s happening in Afghanistan, Iraq and war zones around the world.

There are some bright lights, sure. And I’m not saying this can’t happen, but I don’t think anyone can, yet, articulate how blog-driven media is going to replace traditional media one-for-one, or anything close to that.

One topic I think is particularly important is whether the ease of publishing has destroyed the justification for any special legal privileges for the press. As the Senate debates the shield law, I think this issue is more important than ever.

I also disagree that the “information wants to be free” debate is over. It is one thing to say there is a consensus about creating a mix of paid/free content but quite another to say the legal questions about fair use, terms of use, and the copyrightability of news are resolved.

That’s basically to ask “what kind of networks will emerge in this new media ecosystem” — with the caveat that journalism has always been networked, and the flow of news has always been shaped by intermediaries who may be “journalists” but aren’t exactly “reporters.” We need a way to talk about what people do to or with or for news that’s richer than the professional vocabulary of journalism offers. Any job title that runs from Izzy Stone to David Gregory can’t be that analytically useful…