What To Say? What To Do?

This morning I received an email from a woman in my dance class who's nephew just graduated from journalism school. He wants to be a "writer."

She wanted to know if I had any job leads for him.

Later in the afternoon I received an email from a victim of the Enquirer layoffs, someone who spent her entire career in newspapers and now faces an uncertain future as a middle-aged woman with nothing on her resume but newspapers.

How do I reconcile these two emails?

Since I started working at Children's a year ago I've had probably a half dozen people - some of them I know, some of them I've never met or heard of - contact me wanting a job. All of them were from the Enquirer. Reporters. Copy editors. Editors.

I know how fortunate I am. Doors aren't closing behind me and my colleagues aren't being layed off behind them.

So what do I say to them? Do I tell the new grad to flee newspapers before he becomes ingrained or gets layed off? That seems pretty pessimistic, but that's my instinct. And what do I say to the veteran suddenly unemployed and facing the real possibility of not finding a job?

If there is a balance between this youth and experience I don't know how to level it.