MediaShift blogger Mark Glaser is seeking input for a YourTake roundup column on if the glass is half full or half empty for journalism.

In light of a few recent op-eds, it's a timely topic. See Walter E. Hussman's op-ed (half empty) and the ensuing discussion (half full), Neil Henry's op-ed (half empty), Gordon Borrell's Digital Edge op-ed (half full) and Dan Gillmor's op-ed (half full) for some opinions from this quarter.

Glaser asks on his blog, "So what do you think? Is this a time of crisis for traditional media, and are the upstarts to blame for all the layoffs and business trouble? Or have the old-line media brought trouble upon themselves? Do you see a bright future or cloudy future for journalism in the U.S. and abroad?"

So here's my take: The glass is more than half full.

This is not a time of crisis in the newspaper industry, it's a time of transition. No, the upstarts are not to blame for all the layoffs and business trouble. But, old-line media has not entirely brought trouble upon itself, either. I see a bright future for journalism.

Newspapers have boundless opportunity, and there has been a lot of positive development with newspaper.coms and other technologies in the past several years.

In fact, newspaper content is reaching more people than ever before, thanks to the Internet. In the first quarter of 2007, for example, more than 59 million people (37.6 percent of all active Internet users) visited newspaper Web sites on average during the first quarter of 2007, a record number that represents a 5.3 percent increase over the same period a year ago, according to analysis provided by Nielsen//NetRatings for the Newspaper Association of America in May. Need more statistics? In conjunction with the data cited above, the Digital Edge provided additional data and analysis showing how attractive the newspaper audience is for advertisers. And it's not just the number of newspaper.com readers that's growing -- online advertising is growing, too. That's a good combination.

On the content side, just look at all the "neat-o" projects coming out of newspaper companies that incorporate podcasts, video, user-generated content, hyperlocal coverage, mapping, databases, local directories, social networking, the print edition and all the possible combinations of those things. There are way, way too many to list, but at this moment I'm thinking of two recent projects from washingtonpost.com (Local Explorer and the teen shopping project), all the Digital Edge award winners and the projects featured in the Digital Edge Snapshots series. Newspapers across the country are producing more and more everyday. Newspaper journalists should be proud.

Are some of the technologies in use by newspaper.coms disruptive? Sure.  But, as Gillmor wrote in his op-ed "Journalism Isn't Dying, It's Reviving" that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle this month, "The same technologies that are disrupting the news industry are offering unprecedented opportunities for creating a more diverse, and ultimately more vibrant, journalistic ecosystem."

These disruptive technologies are not killing newspapers (reference aforementioned statistics about audience growth), but they are making newspapers grow and change in new directions. Change isn't easy, and change isn't always fun. Newspaper executives need to acknowledge that -- and move forward with their heads up and minds open.

What doesn't kill the newspaper industry -- and disruptive technologies will not kill the newspaper industry -- will make it stronger. Different, perhaps, but stronger.