The week’s highlights from the freelance and digital news biz:

It was a week for debating whether Google and the Internet have hurt or helped newspapers.

• Search engine guru and ex-newspaper reporter Danny Sullivan doesn’t understand newspapers’ anti-Google stance.
• But a poll of 43 mainstream media insiders conducted by The Atlantic and National Journal reveals 65 percent feel the Internet has hurt journalism while 34 percent say it’s helped.

Meanwhile, new forms of online journalism are getting more notice:

• Buzz Woolley, founder Voice of San Diego, the online reporting site, reports being inundated with requests from people wanting to know how they do what they do.
• In the same panel discussion, held at the recent Logan Symposium at UC Berkeley and reported by PBS MediaShift’s Mark Glaser, the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Robert Rosenthan says collaboration “is going to be very important for profit and nonprofit journalism.”
• ReadWriteWeb interviews David Cohn, founder of Spot.us, the journalism marketplace that lets readers decide what they want to pay to get a story written, on the future of journalism.

A just-launched Online News Association fundraising campaign nets $2,300, enough to offer 31 free memberships. Details at www.Journalists.org.

CBS’ Interactive division launches personal finance and career sites, MoneyWatch.com.

Forbes says it will launch ForbesWoman on May 11. Moira Forbes, daughter of Steve and granddaughter of Malcolm, will serve as publisher of the quarterly print magazine and related Website, which will be sent to Forbes’ 125,000 women suscribers.

News agencies report Iran has formally charged US-Iranian freelance broadcast journalist Roxana Saberi with spying.

The week’s new Twitter tools:

• A geographical directory called LocalTweeps.com. Find me in 97221.
• A collection of Wordpress Twitter plugins.

UPDATED: Last but definitely not least – The Freelance Writer’s Helper is a fantastic everything-you-need-to-know about freelancing wiki guide written by long-time Motley Fool freelancer Tim Beyers. The guide’s a list of agents, associations, blogging services, contests, freelancers and other resources that Beyers updates on a regular basis. In case you don’t know him, Beyers is @milehighfool on Twitter and co-host of the popular #editorchat online chat session for editors and freelancers that runs Wednesdays on Twitter.

Is it just me, or does it seem like there’s a uptick in the stories and blog posts on the evolution of the news business and the role independents – writers and others – are playing in it? The sputtering economy is speeding up the pace of change.

Here are some developments of interest from around the Web in the past week:

Non-profit journalism isn’t the answer to bailing out money-losing newspapers, writes NewWest.net founder Jonathan Weber in The Trouble With Non-Profit Journalism.

Michelle Nicolosi, assistant managing editor of the Seattle PI website and an ex-colleague of mine from OC Register days, launched a blog to teach old reporters new media tricks called Print to Online.

The same folks behind the @mediaisdying, a popular Twitter feed on media closures, picked something decidedly more upbeat for their next venture. The @mediaishirin feed is a running list of available journalists and jobs. Looking for work? Ask them to add you to their list.

CBS Interactive is getting ready to launch a new personal finance website called MoneyWatch.com in March.

BeatBlogging.org compiled a list of journalists who use Twitter to report stories. Feel free to add how you use Twitter to the list.

HR consultant, professor and blogger Steve Boese compiled a list of 100 HR industry people to follow on Twitter, including yours truly. Follow Steve at @sbjet.

Speaking of Twitter, if you’re finding it hard to tweet and get work done, check out Celine Roque’s story on Web Worker Daily, How to turn productivity into a habit which includes helpful suggestions on time boxing, taking advantage of your body’s natural peak time and rewarding yourself for meeting goals.

This one’s not new, but it was new to me – a list of 100 killer WordPress resources on blog posts, pages, comments, categories, themes and a lot more.