Eric Zorn: I regularly get letters from high school and college students asking for career advice. Should I be more encouraging? … [T]heoretically, there will be many jobs in the future for good writers, whatever medium they end up in.

Mary Schmich: When students ask me about the future of journalism, my first answer is, “You tell me.” … There’s still a demand for news, stories and a well-turned opinion, and where there’s a demand there’s a market. If you’re curious, skilled, willing to work hard and make less than your lawyer friends, you’ll find your place. And when you do, will you hire me?

via So, you really want to be a journalist? — chicagotribune.com.

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Over the last couple of weeks – at MIT for the Future of News and Civic Media conference; at the 124th Covenant Annual Meeting;  seeing relatives of mine and Linda’s in Oregon; at Illinois Beach Resort to parachute into the Matson-Mårtensson-Mathiasson family reunion – a lot of people whom I have not seen recently have been asking me about my career change.  There are a number of themes in these questions, but inevitably they come around to a version of the Schmich-Zorn discussion in the Tribune the other day:  Will there be journalism in the future, and are there really university students enrolling to pursue it?

Well, yes and yes.  As many faithful readers know, Forbes reported in April that journalism school enrollments appear to be at an all-time high, and as it turns out Medill’s graduate and undergraduate enrollments for the coming academic year are up significantly. This is probably less surprising when one hears the statistics from Columbia, Medill, and elsewhere on the fact that their 2008 graduates are indeed getting hired … and in a job market like today’s, competitive advantage is not to be sneezed at.

The larger point is made by Mary: “There’s still a demand for news, stories and a well-turned opinion, and where there’s a demand there’s a market.” As I was telling an interviewer today, and as so many others have written, the very real economic crisis gripping the industry is not about news, or journalism, or demand for same.  It’s also not about “paid vs. free” or “print vs. digital.” If both the industry and those studying to join it can stay away from those false dichotomies, canards, and briar patches, many of the hirers and the hirees will have purpose and gainful employment….and many others will have gainful self-employment.

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…and the duckbilled platitude lays & lays
and Lays aytash unee

–e.e. cummings, “remarked Robinson Jefferson”