The future’s bright. It’s just the medium term that looks a little ropey

I remain relentlessly optimistic about the future of journalism, believing that it will outlive its current institutions and models – and I’m not alone in this judging by a few conversations I’ve stumbled across online recently (on Twitter and blog comments – too hard to link to just now).

For a start, I still read a lot of quality journalism. It’s just that much of it is in non-fiction paperbacks, specialist magazines and blogs. Nothing wrong with that.

But in case you were in any doubt that our current, familiar news institutions – daily newspapers, for example – were in a spot of bother, here’s the latest round up of gloom that landed in my inbox from the INMA (International Newsmedia Marketing Association).

• A.H. Belo to Cut 500 Jobs Across Its Newspapers
• Detroit Media Partnership Decides Against Layoffs When Buyout Offer Fails to Meet Its Goals, to Seek Cost Savings Elsewhere
• Telegraph Media Group Plans to Move Printing Work to News International’s Plants Could Cost Up to 140 Jobs at Its Own Facilities
• Associated Press Reduces Rate Structure, Saving Member Newspapers Roughly US$21 Million in Fees
• Survivability Behind the Cuts at the Tribune Company as the Company Struggles With Steep Drop in Revenue
• Copley Press Exploring Sale of the San Diego Union-Tribune
• Newspaper Publisher Mecom May Sell Off Its Norwegian Unit, Edda Media
• Northcliffe Media Revenues Drop 7% in 2008′s 2nd Quarter
• New York Times Company Profits Slip 82% in 2nd Quarter as the Print Advertising Market Declines
• Metro International Planning Expansion in Latin America, Asia, and Russia as the Economy Cools in North America and Western Europe
• Revenues Grew at the Daily Mail and General Trust’s Business-to-Business Division in 2nd Quarter 2008, Offsetting Slipping Advertising Income at Its Publishing Arm