The weakening economy and the increasing popularity of online news means hard times for traditional media….a Wednesday linkfest:

Yesterday, Time Inc. announced that it plans to cut 6 percent of its work force—more than 600 positions. Gannett Co.—the world’s largest newspaper publisher and owner of USA Today—said it would lay off 600 to 1,000 employees by December. And the LA Times announced it would cut 200 people from its newsroom.

This came right on the heels of news that the Christian Science Monitor (a nonprofit that’s been around for almost 100 years) was killing its print edition. Starting in April, it will only be available online. “Everyone who grew up with print, and everyone who worked in print like me, you feel a little sad,” the Monitor‘s editor told the Washington Post.

So why is this good for me, a recently full-time freelancer?

First, I don’t rely on a single company or outlet for my job security. Second, freelancers are cheaper than full-time employees (no benefits! no free lunches!), so it makes business sense for publishers to rely more and more on freelancers. Third, most of what I write is for the web.

As David Carr wrote in a NYTimes column yesterday (emphasis mine):

The paradox of all these announcements is that newspapers and magazines do not have an audience problem—newspaper Web sites are a vital source of news, and growing—but they do have a consumer problem.

Stop and think about where you are reading this column. If you are one of the million or so people who are reading it in a newspaper that landed on your doorstop or that you picked up at the corner, you are in the minority. This same information is available to many more millions on this paper’s Web site, in RSS feeds, on hand-held devices, linked and summarized all over the Web.