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.

But not everybody’s pessimistic about the future of the news business. In fact, there are quite a few optimists who believe the trauma hitting the industry will lead to new business models and opportunities for those editors, reporters and other workers who keep up with the changes.

Here’s just a sample of what commentators are saying about the transformation that’s now taking place, and why it could be a good thing:

Why we should feel bullish for the future of journalism – DigiDave, aka Dave Cohn, wrote this meditation on the future of the news biz from an airport lobby on little sleep. Put aside his youthful enthusiasm – and the f bomb he throws in for effect – and he makes an interesting point about experimenting with business models. Try enough, he says, and some will stick. Cohn doesn’t just talk the talk. With the grant money he won in a Knight News Challenge last year, he’s helped start Spot.us, a marketplace for news where readers can write in to request stories they’d like to see written and donate money toward making it happen.

For other business models, look at FieldReport.com, which is paying thousands of dollars for personal essays, or investigative news Websites such as ProPublica, Environmental Health News and BailoutSleuth, which are being funded by philanthropists or foundations – a throwback to the days when newspapers were owned by wealthy captains of industry.

The market and the Internet don’t care if you make money – News organizations can’t live by the same assumptions they always held about their business, says new media analyst Scott Karp, on Publishing 2.0. The market doesn’t care about traffic or eyeballs, it cares about networks, something Google, Facebook and YouTube have already figured out.

Why it’s a great time to get into journalism – To those who risk much will come great rewards, says social media expert Paul Gillin, who blogs at NewspaperDeathWatch. In this post from October, Gillin recounts the story of one enthusiastic college student who parlayed a summer intership with a major daily newspaper into a paid blogging/reporting gig there.