Former Merc columnist and citizen journalism promoter Dan Gillmor (pictured) says in a Chronicle op-ed today:

“There’s never been a better time, I tell students, to be a journalistic entrepreneur — to invent your own job, to become part of the generation that figures out how to produce and, yes, sell the journalism we desperately need as a society and as citizens of a shrinking planet. The young journalists who are striking out on their own today, experimenting with techniques and business models, will invent what’s coming. …

“[S]mart people — including the ones working for traditional media companies, most of which are still quite profitable even as trends work against them — will invent, discover and use democratized media tools to create updated and new kinds of journalistic products and services. The journalistic ecosystem could end up healthier in the end, if we get this right.”