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.

With talk of a recession and a generally dismal outlook for print media, is it a good time to launch a magazine? Apparently so. At least three major U.S. publishers are working on titles set to debut in 2008 or 2009: the Wall Street Journal, Mansueto Ventures LLC, publisher of Inc. and Fast Company, and IDG, the tech trade heavyweight. In a novel twist, a fourth company, the Rocky Mountain region daily news Website NewWest.Net has announced plans for a print spin off.

According to published reports like this one, the Wall Street Journal’s new luxury glossy – the working title is Pursuits – has already lined up advertisers and a tentative 2009 launch date. Mansueto Ventures originally set a May 2008 launch date for Upstart, a quarterly for startups,though according to this Mediaweek report, the date is now “undetermined.”

If the economy’s still OK, I predict they’ll get the advertising base they need to greenlight their respective ventures. But if we’re in a recession, don’t be surprised if these companies hold off a while longer, or scrap plans altogether.

More details:

• The Wall Street Journal’s new venture will be a high-end glossy quarterly for the super rich. The editor is Tina Gaudoin, a lifestyle editor and columnist for the Times of London who became editor of that paper’s high-end glossy, Luxx, last June. Gaudoin came under fire this week after a Columbia Journalism Review story questioned her journalistic ethics for quoting a business partner in a Times column and failing to disclose the relationship.
• In addition to UpStart, Mansueto is starting FastCompany.tv, an online TV network covering the tech scene with interviews, reviews and news on “the latest technology products, and lifestyle programming.”
• IDG, publisher of PC World, Computerworld, CIO and other tech titles, is preparing to relaunch The Industry Standard, the former Internet trade that died along with the rest of the dot-com business back in 2001. IDG was a majority stakeholder of The Standard and acquired the magazine’s remaining assets after it went bankrupt. Now IDG plans to relaunch The Standard as an online-only publication and is searching for an editor in chief. The company’s posted the position on an IDG careers page that’s accessible only to people who register at the site.
• Meanwhile, The Industry Standard’s former editor in chief Jonathan Weber is busy with his own plans to spin off a print magazine from NewWest.net, the regional daily news site he started after leaving Silicon Valley for Missoula, Montana. Weber weighed in on the print v. online media debate earlier this month in this guest editorial in the Times of London’s TimesOnline.com.