If journalism dies, it won’t be because of Google or Yahoo!, or even craigslist, it will be because of people like Neil Henry — members of the cranky old journalist brigade who whine about the state of online affairs while insisting on remaining blithely ignorant of what’s really going on online.

Jay Rosen has a nice round up of blogger response’s to Henry’s column, which I didn’t have time to deal with when it came out last week.

If you’re one of those people who think, “Gosh, darn it, Google should give us some money.” Or, “Gosh darn it, if only we didn’t give our content away for free,” then I have a suggestion for you: educate yourself before you start lecturing others on how modern journalism should work.

You’re obviously smart (I mean, geez, you’ve survived in the journalism world since Ernie Pyle first used an ink well, so you gotta have some grey matter), and modern journalism can use your brains, but you’re doing none of us any good with shallow conclusions and misinformed diatribes.

Educate yourself about online. The best place to start is by creating an account here. I also recommend accounts here, here and here.