Struggling with the future of journalism

Interesting that John Curley, deputy managing editor at the SF Chronicle, posted his goodbye message (after taking a buyout the other day) on his Flickr account. Now there's a juncture of old and new media (and the picture is great). More interesting, as Curley says, that someone who 'gets it' is still out the door:

I am surprised and dismayed that the organization thinks it can have a future without me. To be honest, I thought I'd get the chance to help lead the paper where it needed to go to compete successfully in the digital age. But instead, off I go.

Lots and lots of comments.
Also interesting: The Chronicle's started up a blog to highlight job opportunities and retirement help for those downsized employees.

There's a fascinating discussion going on on David Cohn's blog, DigiDave, where Dave posted a question, Where's the Money to Teach Journalists How to Code?. Lots of comments here, from those who know, and the best suggestions, it seems, are the ones that say you need to teach yourself, including this from Mindy McAdams:

I hear a lot of people say they want to "learn Flash" but they don't have the time. "Well, what do you want to make with Flash?" I ask. They don't know. And that, in my opinion, is the real reason they can't learn it. Has nothing to do with time, per se.

Good point. From years of trying to learn programs myself and trying to train journalists in them, I've definitely learned that you won't learn a software tool until you have a good use for it. It's no use taking a database course unless you have an idea of a project that needs to sort and analyze data.