Jonathan Last, at The Weekly Standard, wanders around the subject of improving journalism education before finally getting to his point:

If America's universities were providing students with adequate academic instruction, instead of pumping out degrees in pseudosubjects like "communications," then J-schools wouldn't need to adapt at all. They could simply shut down.

Speaking as an employer, I’d hate to see J-schools shut down or universities drop "communications" as a major. I’d have to spend more time screening resumes.

I won’t even consider hiring a recent grad who majored in "communications." In my way of thinking the major firmly brands its holder as a learning-averse individual who lacks ambition, is unable to communicate, knows nothing worth communicating, and has never been required to master any difficult subject.

Resumes from J-school grads, unless they went to Northwestern’s Medill School, go into the same reject file. J-school grads are dependably illiterate about the world of new media and – far worse – have bought into a way of thinking that makes them grossly dysfunctional in the new media world. They’re precociously pompous about not knowing what they don’t know.

Communications major? Reject. J-school grad. Reject. Next resume.

New Homes Magazine ad sales are up 20 percent year-over-year through the May issue, without any increase in ad rates.

Online revenues from YoChicago and Housing Newswire are largely theoretical at this point - a bit beyond the fabled "tens of dollars" that newspaper sites were once mocked for generating, but not enough to talk about.

Weak online revenues are not yet a cause for concern. Print's up substantially over budget. And, we have yet to finalize our online offerings and begin asking for orders.

We've been focused on recruiting, adding and training several new staff members. We've also redesigned the YoChicago site (rollout next week) even though it's new, has been well received and is growing its audience.

The bulk of our time and attention recently has been devoted to establishing a base for our neighborhood guide content and our other audience-building features. More on that topic soon.

Our new editorial assistant started Monday. He comes with an impressive resume (recent summa cum laude graduate of Northwestern).

Andrew Duncan, who had been with us part time, is switching to a full-time basis and taking on the daunting task of selling to Lake View landlords.

Another new employee will start a week from Monday, focused on promoting HousingNewswire, which soft-launched (again) today. He'll also have a short-term focus on recruiting bloggers into the YoChicago network of neighborhood and topical blogs.

We've just hired (I think) an editorial assistant to work on our highrise directory and other reference projects.

And, I've just posted two openings on Craigslist: one for a salesperson to work with small- to medium-sized landlords, one for a blogmeister to recruit, train and support a network that will grow to hundreds of neighborhood bloggers over the course of the next year. Will also advertise these openings in the Chicago Reader this week.

Hiring good staff is such a critical priority that it would be wonderful to be able to devote full-time to it.