With the fury of hell condemning the world of journalism through page-cut fires and employee-layoff brimstones, what hope does a fresh graduate have seeking a job in the most essential, yet failing business in the United States?

The answer may currently be depressing, but the night is always darkest before dawn.

In order to further analyze the problem, one must look to the source of the issue. The industry’s endless economic scrutiny only partially identifies the true predicament.

Society, including the generation graduating from college, doesn’t realize their role in the death of newspapers across the world.

The information age is in full swing and newspapers slipped up by giving their business away for free. The younger generation is unforgiving and has the ability to ensure newspapers won’t recover from this grievous mistake. How can a newspaper compete with free Internet blogs?

The answer is simple: page-cut fires and employee-layoff brimstones.

In an article published by The Atlantic, a poll of 43 media insiders was conducted and 65 percent said journalism has been hurt more than helped by the Internet.

“The Internet has some plusses: it has widened the circle of those participating in the national debate,” one respondent stated. “But it has mortally wounded the financial structure of the news business so that the cost of doing challenging, independent reporting has become all but prohibitive all over the world.”

The New York Times Co. is currently requiring the Boston Globe to cut $20 million out of their budget. If they fail to comply by the end of May, then the company will shut down newspaper operations.

This $20 million cut is following a $10 million cut in delivery salaries the Globe was required to make previously.

The Globe employs 732 writers, photographers and editing staff. This is approximately 1.5 percent of the total journalism jobs in America, which currently rests roughly at 50,000.

The Globe isn’t the only paper feeling the weight of this dooming situation. The Pennsylvania Morning Call cut 40 positions from staff and redesigned the newspaper in 2008 in hopes to counteract their budget shortcomings.

Newspapers are becoming desperate and will undoubtedly collapse sooner rather than later.

Newspapers will die. Newspapers will fold. The impending destruction of the news industry and newsroom is inevitable and imminent.

However, after talking to Carl Crothers earlier this month, the executive editor for the Winston-Salem Journal, the future of journalism seemed clearer and even a little hopeful.

While understanding newspapers will die, oftentimes society fails to see rebirth. Much like the economic recession as a result of the housing industry, newspapers grew top heavy and the bottom is falling out.

Again, there will be cuts. Newspapers will die. At some point though, the industry will turn around. The desire to read news is higher than ever before and the world is frantically absorbing everything via Internet.

The future of newspapers is already here, it just isn’t prominent yet. POLITICO, a politically charged publication, formally was online driven only by advertisement sales. Due to their success, POLITICO created a secondary print edition to supplement their current process.

Most publications are doing just the opposite, resulting in a foreseeable death and hopeful rebirth.

The day newspapers stop saying their focus is online content, and honestly becomes online-oriented, will be the day graduates from college will no longer have to fear the ever-so opportunistic journalism major.

This day is not out of sight. Crothers believes by the end of 2009 there will be a turn-around in the news industry. It is impossible to determine whether this is true, but it is certain once the news industry hits bottom, there will be a turn upwards.

In the meantime journalism majors, just remember: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no blogger, for news value is with me; your pen and your publication, they comfort me.”

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