Stanford was awash in discussions about the future of journalism yesterday. There was IJ-6 (the Sixth Conference on Innovation Journalism) at the Tressider Memorial Union. Then, over at the Graduate School of Business, VLAB (MIT/Stanford Venture Lab) hosted a panel called "News in the 21st Century: Who Reads Print Anymore?"

The panel, aimed at entreprenuers, covered territory painfully familiar to journalists (newspapers are dying, we don't know what the answer is, etc...). But the panelists' parting advice was worth noting.

Rob Curley, president and executive editor of Greenspun Interactive, Las Vegas Sun (which, incidentally, just won an EPpy for best newspaper-affiliated Web site with fewer than 1 million unique monthly visitors)

I don't know if print is going to survive, but I know journalism is going to survive. I have no doubt in my life, in five years, the Las Vegas Sun may not be printing stories that save people's lives, but it will be saving people's lives. I would love to tell you that a blogger has the ability to get people to quit dying on the Strip in construction sites, but I don't think a blogger has that ability right now. I think the Las Vegas Sun, whether in print or online, has that ability.

Guy Kawasaki, managing director of Garage Technology Ventures (an early-stage venture capital firm) and founder of AllTop (a self-described "online magazine rack" of all the top stories in certain categories, designed to serve up readers to advertisers in a more efficient manner)

We can all sit up here and shoot holes in what you’re going to do and why there's no business model and it's a horrible time, but what really matters is, two, three, four, five years from now, is we'll look back and say, 'That guy started a paper-based newspaper in 2009. That was a dumb-ass thing to do, and look where he is now [as in, 'he succeeded despite our pessimism'].' So take our advice as experts, throw it out, and just do what you love.

More, after the jump

Larry Magid, tech analyst for CBS News and CNET and columnist at the San Jose Mercury News and Palo Alto Daily News

Follow your passion. I've discovered that, every time I've done something for the purpose of making money, I've fallen flat on my face. And every time I've done something for the purpose of following a passion or changing the world, maybe I've made money, maybe I didn't, but usually something good came of it.

Ann Grimes, acting director of Stanford's Graduate Program in Journalism

Think about how you use and consume media and what problems you, personally, experience. And try to fix those problems or find a solution to them.... Because if you're encountering it, probably a lot of other people are as well.

Norman A. Fogelsong, general partner at Institutional Venture Partners, one of the investors in Twitter

I think we're living in an extremely exciting time right now for journalism and many other things.... This is a great time for entrepreneurs to perceive [opportunities] and execute against them.