Glancing at just a couple of very different Internet items on Aug. 10, someone who was only vaguely aware of the recent travails of American journalism, especially the newspaper industry's woes, might think things are looking up in the news business.

At NPR.org, a letter from a distinguished journalism educator, the University of Missouri's Geneva Overholser, was headlined: "Exciting Times in American Journalism."

Overholser wrote: "I made a few futile efforts in my newspaper-editor days to bring attention to the inevitable decline inherent in the profit-pressured direction we were heading, and so did others. But the thing was immovable. More and more people grew disenchanted. Now everything is moving, and citizens are engaged. What a delight!"

"A few futile efforts" was a modest allusion to Overholser's seven-year tenure as editor of the Des Moines Register, which ended with her resignation and that of the paper's managing editor in 1995. The New York Times reported that their departures were widely regarded as "public symbols of a battle between news professionals and business executives that is raging behind closed doors at many of the country's newspapers."

In a somewhat oblique, even weird, way the hopeful outlook in Overholser's letter was reinforced by an announcement published that same day on the MediaBistro.com's FishbowlDC blog.

The website, which offers news, job listings and related content of interest to people in various media industries, was listing the winners and close runners-up in their online poll to choose the "hottest media types" working in Washington. The winners included the Washington Times' John McCaslin and NPR's Elizabeth Shogren.

(By the way, it was "hottest" as in "sexiest," not "hottest" as in "most bothered by global warming." That probably goes without saying, but this is a newsletter for environmental journalists.)

With a respected observer's pronouncement as upbeat as Overholser's coinciding with industry-insider silliness as infectious as the "hottest" contest – more than 40,000 votes were cast – the obituaries for American journalism must be premature. Right?

Well, hold on a minute. On that same day, Aug. 10, a third Internet item posted at Editor & Publisher's website was quite grim enough to cause one to wonder if the first two items amounted to so much whistling through the graveyard.

The brief E&P story reported that the Dallas Morning News would eliminate "85 jobs in the newsroom, about 17 percent of the editorial staff, in preparation for a major restructuring."

E&P reported further that if a voluntary buyout offer does not cut costs enough, "management could resort to laying off staffers."

The article noted that in slashing its editorial staff of about 500, the Morning News "is following the lead of many other metro papers across the country, which have been struggling for circulation and advertising revenue." It did not mention a significant historical detail, however – the Dallas newspaper laid off a reported 65 editorial staffers less than two years ago (see AJR article.

At this writing, the buyout process at the Dallas paper is continuing, but Dallas blogs have been reporting names of many longtime staffers taking the buyout offer. A reader of one blog lamented, "As a lifelong area resident and DMN subscriber, I am deeply saddened by the dramatic decline of that once outstanding newspaper. The DMN used to be a regional treasure, but in the wake of these draconian cuts we'll be lucky if it does not degenerate into a civic embarrassment."

(Update: Belo Corp., owner of the Morning News, announced on Sept. 14, after this column's original posting, that 111 newsroom employees had accepted the company's buyout offer.)

And the newspaper industry's carnage continues. In Ohio, the Akron Beacon-Journal's new ownership – Black Press Ltd., which acquired the paper in the breakup of Knight-Ridder – announced it will lay off 40 of 161 newsroom employees.

Overholser was surely right to find encouragement in developments like the ones she cited in her letter to NPR, such as "the Knight Foundation funding training for new journalists in old media ethics, and training for old journalists in new media techniques." Those are good and necessary actions.

Still, it's impossible to ignore the serious damage that continues to be done – both to good journalists' careers and to the overall quality of journalism – in the profit-driven toll of buyouts and layoffs. When reporter, editor, and photographer jobs are eliminated, when the amount and quality of original news-gathering is diminished, then the central public-service function of journalism inevitably deteriorates.

Which is not to say there's no reason for hope. If hope can be found anywhere, it's in New Orleans, a year after Katrina devastated that city.

If any newspaper in America would be universally excused for cutting staff because of economic hardship, it's the New Orleans Times-Picayune. But it has not done so.

In an account of that paper's widely-admired performance during and after the storm, the St. Petersburg Times reported in March that Times-Picayune publisher Ashton Phelps Jr. had "pledged no layoffs in the newsroom."

A Times-Picayune official confirmed for this column that, while about 35 news staffers out of 270 have left in the hurricane's aftermath, the no-layoff pledge is still in effect.

In a city that was virtually destroyed.

So here's a question that anyone who cares about the future of American journalism – about its role as a democracy-serving enterprise – should ponder:

If the owners of the New Orleans Times-Picayune can refrain from cutting their journalistic staff, then shouldn't other newspaper owners who feel they have to cut costs at least look a little harder for alternative ways to do it before getting out the ax?

It's hard to imagine that another American newspaper faces economic challenges as difficult as the Times-Picayune's.