Today, I Want My Rocky and SaveTheNews.org launch a week-long series of blogs, marking the six-month anniversary of the paper’s closure. Former Rocky journalists talk about what we’ve done, what we’ve learned and where we think our industry is headed. Today’s installment, by Kim Humphreys, makes the case for journalists to participate in policy and business decisions regarding our craft.

After the latest round of layoffs, the Fort Collins paper’s staff stands at half the size it was at the start of 2007.

The company reversed a second-quarter loss owing to prior-year write-downs of its newspaper businesses and partnerships, and though print advertising continued to slide, falling 29 percent, the results exceeded Wall Street’s views.

With a deep recession compounding the news industry’s own structural economic crisis, four out of 10 journalism and mass communications graduates have been unable to find full-time jobs, according to a new survey from the University of Georgia.

For news organizations trying to figure out how to get readers to donate money or pay for online content, Dr. B.J. Fogg, a persuasive-technology psychologist at Stanford, is the go-to guy.

Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather told an Aspen audience Tuesday that journalism has declined to such a point that it is time for the government to intervene.

Most open-meetings, open-records and other right-to-know laws have been fought for and won by news organizations. When CSU officials voted in private to appoint a new chancellor, three Colorado news organizations sued. The university settled, and the public secured its right to know.

Ann Arbor, 45 miles west of Detroit, is home to the University of Michigan, a highly educated population and a relatively stable economy. But the News, like other newspapers, says it has been losing money as advertisers abandon print and readers seek information online or elsewhere.