Former New York Times correspondent Sharon Waxman sent us an e-mail to let us know that she's at the NewTools 2008 conference in Sunnyvale, and she's getting jazzed about all the cool gadgets that will eventually replace paid, trained reporters with "citizen journalists."

Pardon us, if don't feel quite as thrilled. Even as "New Media" types, we can't get too excited about "democracy and widgets, citizen journalism and Twitter, sputtering newspapers and algorithms."

Waxman seems to sense our gloom, adding, "At a very popular discussion group the question was: 'Who's gonna pay the journalists?' An excellent question."

It is an excellent question. Getting more excellent by the day.